Chapter 5. Noun.

5. 1. The Noun and Its Categories

• One of the largest classes of words.

• An open class.

• As a part of speech it has the categorial meaning of ‘thingness’, ‘substance’ (e.g. a table, a man, a book – music, paleness, beauty). Field theory: the nucleus – concrete nouns which denote living beings, then nouns denoting objects, further in the periphery – abstract nouns, verbal nouns, gerunds.

• Morphemic structure (typical stem-building elements – suffixes –er, -ist, -ess, -ee; -ness, -ion,- ity, -ance, -ment; conversion to love - love). Practically any word can be substantivised: must – a must; to export – export.

• Functional properties: the most characteristic substantive functions of the noun are that of the subject and that of the object. Other syntactic functions: attribute, adverbial, predicative.

• Combinability: with articles, other determinants (demonstrative, possessive, indefinite pronouns), with nouns (prepositional combinability – an entrance to the house, casal combinability – the president’s speech, sheer contact – a sports event, film festivals), with adjectives (prepositive and postpositive), with verbs.

The Noun is a word expressing substance in the widest sense of the word.

Noun has a categorical meaning of thingness, because noun effects nomination of the fullest value. N-central nominative lexemic unit of L. It functions are determined by it’s semantic. It can be subject, object, attribute, adverbial and predicative.

Types of combinability:

• Prepositional with other nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. Ex: An entrance to the house.

• The case that is possessive ex: The President’s speech

• With one another by sheer contact ex: Film festival

The existence of this combination (3 types) is a big problem for many scholars. How to treat them? Whether its one separate word or a word group. It’s a so called “stone-wall problem”.

The N is characterized by a set of formal features. It has its typical suffixes, stem models, conversion patterns. Not all scholars are unanimous on the number of grammatical category of the noun.

Classification of nouns:

1. Proper and common noun (the base of this division is “type of nomination”

2. Animate and Inanimate (the base of this division is form existence)

3. Human and Non-human (based on personal quality)

4. Countable and Uncountable (quantities structure)

5.2. The category of gender.

According to Ilyish noun has not got the category of grammatical gender.

Blokh states that the category of gender is expressed in English by the obligatory correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns of the 3rd person. It’s strictly oppositional, formed by 2 oppositions hierarchically related.1.Personal noun (strong). 2.Non-person (weak).

The other oppositions function in the subject of person nouns only. The cases of reductions:

1. Non-person and their substitute are used in the positions of neutralization.

2. Great number of nouns is capable for expressing both female and masculine person genders.

Ex: person, parent, friend have a common gender. In plural all genders-neutralized.

Nouns can show the sex of their referents lexically ex: boy-friend, girl-friend or woth the help of suffixes –ess (mistress).

The category of gender in English is semantic because it reflects the actual features of the named objects, but the semantic of the category doesn’t in the least make it into non-grammatical.