6. Collective nouns which denote a number or a collection of similar individuals or things

regarded as a single unit. They may present some difficulties in the way of agreement with the predicate. They fall under the following groups:

• Nouns used only in the singular: foliage, machinery, equipment, furniture, hair;

• Nouns which are singular in form (unmarked) though plural in meaning: police, people, clergy, gentry, cattle, poultry:

The cattle are walking in the field.

The police wear blue uniforms.

• Nouns that may be both singular and plural. It depends on the way we look upon the group as a whole or as a group of separate people: a family, a government, a crew, a company, a crowd, a team, a group, a party.

My family is small. / My family are early risers.

The crew consists of 20 sailors. / The crew were all asleep.

7. Some uncountable nouns can be used as countables with the change of their meaning:

iron – an iron, beauty – a beauty, youth – a youth, people – a people

8. Some countable nouns used in the plural acquire a different meaning and become

uncountables: colours ( flag), customs ( таможня, пошлины).

The category of case

Case indicates the relation of the noun to the other words in the sentence. There are two case forms in English: the Common case: table, sister and the Possessive ( genitive) case: the sister’s room, the sisters’ room.

The common case has a very general meaning while the possessive case usually denotes

• possession, ownership: Mary’s bag

• close association: Dick’s father, the students’ teacher

• source, authorship: the uncle’s decision, the manager’s information, Byron’s poem

• the doer of the action: My brother’s arrival, Ann’s sorrow

• the object of the action: the murderer’s arrest, the hostages’ release

• quality: a wife’s duties, women’s clothes, a man’s hat (compare: the man’s hat), children’s toys (the children’s toys), an idiot’s smile

• measure: an hour’s trip, a mile’s distance.

The usage of the possessive case is restricted to

• Proper names and to nouns denoting human beings: Peter’s car.

• Nouns denoting time: yesterday’s newspaper, a month’s holiday.

• Nouns denoting distance: a mile’s distance, a 15- minutes’ walk.

• Names of countries, cities: London’s transport system. America’s population

• Nouns: world, earth, sun, moon: The world’s resources. The earth’s rotation.

The country’s beauty. The sun’s rays.

• With nouns denoting some inanimate thing: to my heart’s content, at the death’s door, at an arm’s length, at a stone’s throw, at the water’s edge.

Usually nouns in the possessive case answer the question whose? and function as an attribute to another noun. The English possessive case corresponds to the Russian genitive case.

My brother’s room -- комната моего брата.

In English the attributive part precedes the head word, in Russian the word order is the reverse.

In English it is not good to use several possessive forms before the modified word while in Russian it’s feasible: Это сын брата моего друга. -- This is the son of my friend’s brother.

The relations of the genitive case between two nouns denoting inanimate things in English are rendered by means of the preposition of : The cover of the book – обложка книги (книжная обложка). The center of the city – центр города (the city's centre).

Nouns in the singular build the possessive case forms by means of the inflexion (form-building suffix) –‘s, which is pronounced in the same way as the plural suffix of nouns:

1) after vowels and voiced consonants [ z ]: My sister’s dress. Sam’s desk.

2) after voiceless consonants [ s ]: Alec’s family, Kate’s room.

3) after the fricative consonants –s , -z, -x [ iz ]: Liz’s parents, Marx’s departure,

A nurse’s overall.

In some world-known names the normal spelling of the case is with the apostrophe only:

Dickens’(Dickens’s) novels, Burns’ (Burns’s)poems.

In the plural the possessive case is formed by the apostrophe (‘), so, as we can see, the plural forms in the common and possessive cases coincide in oral speech:

Workers – Workers’ caps; Cats – Cats’ paws; Nurses – Nurses’ overalls.

The possessive case of the nouns men, women, children –is formed by means of –‘s: men’s coats, women’s handbags, children’s toys.

A specific feature of the possessive case in English is the so-called Group Possessive: John and Mary’s children; Ilf and Petrov’s novel; when one thing belongs to two people.

See the difference in the sense of these sentences:

Dick’s and Sam’s parents have always been very good friends.

Dick and Sam’s parents love their sons equally.

The suffix of the possessive case can refer to an extended noun phrase: Aunt Julia’s face, The Duke of Norfolk’s palace, the secretary of state’s office.

Compound nouns have ‘s joined to the final component: the sister-in-law’s bag, the brothers-in-law’s friendship.

There are some cases when the noun in the possessive case is not followed by the head noun. This is the so-called absolute possessive. It is used:

1. To avoid repetition: Our house is older than Mary’s.

2. After the preposition of: an old friend of my mother’s (double possessive)

3. To denote places: the butcher’s, the baker’s, the chemist’s, St Paul’s (Cathedral), at Timothy’s, at my uncle’s.

She is at her grandmother’s. He is at the baker’s round the corner.

I usually go to the hair-dresser’s to have my hair cut.