Noun and its categories semantic features of the noun
The noun is the central lexical unit of language. It is the main nominative unit of speech. It is the main nominative unit of speech. As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised by three criteria: semantic (the meaning), morphological (the form and grammatical catrgories) and syntactical (functions, distribution).
The noun denotes thingness ore substance in a general sense. Thus nouns name things, living beings, places, materials, processes, states, abstract notions and qualities.
According to different principles of classification nouns fall into several subclasses:
According to the type of nomination they may be proper and common (Fig. 28).
Fig. 28
According to the form of existence they may be animate and inanimate. Animate nouns in their turn fall into human and non-human (Fig. 29).
According to their quantitative structure nouns can be countable, uncountable and collective (Fig. 30).
Fig. 29
Fig. 30
Morphological features of the noun
According to their morphological composition nouns can be divided into simple, derived, and compound (Fig. 31).
Fig. 31
Simple nouns consist of only one root-morpheme.
Derived nouns (derivatives) are composed of one root-morpheme and one or more derivational morphemes (prefixes or suffixes).
Compound nouns consist of at least two stems. The meaning of a compound is not a mere sum of its elements. The main types of compound nouns are:
Noun stem + noun stem: e.g. airmail
Adjective stem + noun stem: e.g. blackbird
Verb stem + noun stem: e.g. pickpocket
Gerund + noun stem: e.g. dancing-hall
Noun stem + prepositions + noun stem: e.g. mother-in-law
Substantivised phrases: e.g. forget-me-not
Categories of the Noun
Morphologically nouns are characterized by the grammatical categories of number and case. Some scholars admit the existence of the category of gender and the category of article determination (Fig. 32).
Fig. 32
Category of Number
The grammatical category of number is the linguistic representation of the objective category of quantity. The category of number is expressed by the opposition of the plural form of the noun to its singular form (Fig. 33).
Fig. 33
The semantic difference of the oppositional members of the category of number in many linguistic works is treated traditionally: the meaning of the singular is interpreted as “one” and the meaning of the plural – as “many” (“more than one”).
In modern linguistics the categorial meaning of the plural is interpreted as the denotation of “the potentially dismembering reflection of the structure of the referent’ (correspondingly, the categorial meaning of the singular is treated as “the non-dismembering reflection of the structure of the referent”).
The grammatical meaning of number may not coincide with the notional quantity: the noun in the singular does not necessarily denote one object while the plural form may be used to denote one object consisting of several parts (Fig. 33).
Nouns
