The document discusses various categories of English nouns, including: 1. Gender categories such as masculine, feminine, personal, and neuter nouns. Gender in English is a semantic rather than grammatical category. 2. Number categories of singular and plural expressed through suffixes like -s. Number corresponds to notions of individuality vs. discreteness. 3. Case categories debated as possessingive vs. nominative and common cases, or as lost altogether in English's development. 4. Determinacy categories of definite vs. indefinite expressed through definite and indefinite articles introducing old vs. new information.

1. Lecture 5
English noun and its categories.
1. English noun, general characteristics and classification
Noun is a part of speech which is characterized by _____________The noun is
characterised by some special types of combinability: typical of the noun is the left-
hand combinability with another noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb
(_____________).
Besides categorial meaning noun has dependent implicit meanings which are
reflected in semantic classification of a noun. Nouns can be differentiated into:
- common and proper (criterion –______________)
- animate – inanimate (criterion –________________)
- human-non-human (criterion:________________)
- countable-uncountable (criterion:_____________)
- concrete-abstract. E.g.____________________..
Functional characteristics are determined by its semantic properties. The most
characteristic substantive functions are_______________________.
Combinability is specific: article, particle, gerund and so on.
The combinability “_____________” has presented a big problem for linguists.
One says it’s a noun, other – adjective (stone wall, cannon ball).
So, noun as a part of speech has formal characteristics, specific derivational
element, and noun has functions, it has grammatical categories.
2. The category of gender.
In English four semantic gender classes can be distinguished:
 Masculine nouns refer primary to
 Feminine nouns refer primary to
 Personal nouns refer primary to
 Neuter nouns refer primary to
The existence of gender category is denied in theoretical grammar, but recognized
in practical (Bloch, Smirnitskuj), because in English there is no formal marker of this
category. If it is recognized, it has lexical or semantic category, because lexical
meaning expresses sex differences.

2. The gender distinctions are expressed only by nouns denoting living being.______
If this category is recognized as the opposition of masculine and feminine gender,
the strong member of this opposition is considered to be ______________ (as there is
suffix “-ess” expressing feminine gender that can be taken as the categorical marker,
e.g. __________________
Usually the distinction of nouns into masculine, feminine and neuter gender is
expressed ___________ (father-mother, boy-girl). So it is not grammatical but more
___________ category.
In __________gender has formal features. It is determined by the form of the
word, there is no sense in gender distinction. So it is purely formal grammatical
category.
3. The category of number.
The grammatical category of number is the linguistic representation of the
objective category of _____________. The category of number is expressed
by_________________. The strong member of this binary opposition is the plural
(marker –s). There are non-productive markers of forming plurality: e.g. children,
phenomena.
The realization of this category is influenced by the dependent implicit meaning
countableness – uncounbableness. The number category is realized only within
subclass___________.
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. The singular
form may denote:
a) oneness (individual separate object – a cat);
b) generalization (the meaning of the whole class – The cat is a domestic
animal);
c) indiscreteness (uncountableness - money, milk).
The plural form may denote:
a) the existence of several objects (cats);
b) the inner discreteness (pluralia tantum, jeans).

3. To sum it up, all nouns may be subdivided into three groups: 1. The nouns in
which the opposition of explicit discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed : cat::cats;
2. The nouns in which this opposition is not expressed explicitly but is revealed by
syntactical and lexical correlation in the context.
3. The nouns with homogenous number forms.
The category of case
The category of case is expressed by opposition of 2 forms: the common case and
the possessive case, which is the strong member of the opposition (the marker ‘s, th).
The meaningful side of this category is disputable. It is known that the essence of
this category is to denote different kinds of relations between objects. But in English
this meaning is very specific. The English case doesn’t express the variety of relations
between objects but the only the relation (meaning) of possessiveness.
Another peculiarity of this category is that not all nouns can form possessive case.
There are the following points of view as to the category of case.
1. The first view may be called the “theory of positional cases”. Its supporters are
Nesfield, Deutchwinne. They distinguish 4 cases: The nominative case (subject to a
verb); The vocative case (address); The dative case (indirect object); The
accusative case (direct object, and also prepositional object)
2. The theory of prepositional cases (G. Curme (ke:m)). regards nounal
combinations with the prepositions in certain object and attributive collocations
as morphological case forms:
Dative Case Give this book to John; Genitive Case She is a friend of my mother.
3. The limited case theory. This case theory is at present most broadly acceped
among linguists both in this country and abroad. It was formulated by such scholars as
H. Swift and O. Jesperson and has since been developed by A. Smirnitskij and
L.Barkhudarov. recognizes the existence in English of a limited case system:
Genitive Case This is John’s book; Common Case Give John this book.
4. There are three cases: the Nominative, the Genitive, the Objective due to the
existence of objective pronouns me, him, whom, you (singular), her/it, us, you
(plural), them

4. 5. There is the view that states that there is no case category in English as it has
been lost in the course of its historical development. Instead of this category the
category of possessiveness was introduced. There is also a discussion as to the nature
of “’s”.
If this category is recognized it should be noticed that it’s essentially different
from case categories in other languages (synthetic). We can’t state for sure that
inflexional cases of noun in English have ceased to exist and very specific two-forms
system has been developed.
The category of article determination (category of definiteness - indefiniteness)
In English because of the articles it’s possible to discriminate a category of article
determination. This category is opposition of 2 form: notionl and formal.
In theoretical grammar there is a problem as to the nature of article (what is
article?). If it is a marker of morphological category it’s treated as a flexional word.
But if article is considered to be a functional part of speech then it can’t be used to
express morphological categories. That’s why this category is very disputable.
Besides, definite article is less abstract, it’s more individualized in comparison with
the indefinite “a”. As to the usage we must speak also about zero articles.
Zero articles exists when: a noun or noun phrase is not preceded by an article.
The usage of article is connected with the communicative value of the elements,
its functions whether the elements express already known information or new.
Elements which express already known information are called theme. They are
introduced by definite article. New information – rheme. Indefinite article is required.