English nouns: definitions and classification

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Chapter I: The noun as a universal part of speech in the language

I.1. Definition of noun as a part of speech

definition classification noun

All the words of the English language are grouped into different types of classes. This classification is based on three main principles:

1) their grammatical meaning;

2) their form and

3) their syntactical characteristics.

By the first we understand the meaning common to all the words of the class, such as thingness for the noun or either process or state for the verb.

By the second we mean the morphological characteristics of the class meant, such as the number of the noun or the voice of the verb.

By the third - the combinability and the syntactical functions of a type of word.

We distinguish between notional and functional parts of speech: the former denoting extralinguistic phenomena such as things, actions, qualities, emotions and the latter - relations and connections between notional words or sentences. Thus there are 9 notional parts of speech and 3 functional ones.

The notional parts of speech are:	The functional parts of speech are:
the noun the adjective the stative the pronoun the numeral the verb the adverb the modal words the interjection	the preposition the conjunction the particle

The noun as a part of speech has the categorial meaning of "substance" or "thingness". It follows from this that the noun is the main nominative part of speech, effecting nomination of the fullest value within the framework of the notional division of the lexicon.

The noun has the power, by way of nomination, to isolate different properties of substances (i.e. direct and oblique qualities, and also actions and states as processual characteristics of substantive phenomena) and present them as corresponding self-dependent substances. E.g.:

Her words were unexpectedly bitter.-- We were struck by the unexpected bitterness of her words. At that time he was down in his career, but we knew well that very soon he would be up again.-- His career had its ups and downs. The cable arrived when John was preoccupied with the arrangements for the party.-- The arrival of the cable interrupted his preoccupation with the arrangements for the party.

This natural and practically unlimited substantivisation force establishes the noun as the central nominative lexemic unit of language.

The categorial functional properties of the noun are determined by its semantic properties.

The most characteristic substantive function of the noun is that of the subject in the sentence, since the referent of the subject is the person or thing immediately named. The function of the object in the sentence is also typical of the noun as the substance word. Other syntactic functions, i.e. attributive, adverbial, and even predicative, although performed by the noun with equal ease, are not immediately characteristic of its substantive quality as such. It should be noted that, while performing these non-substantive functions, the noun essentially differs from the other parts of speech used in similar sentence positions. This may be clearly shown by transformations shifting the noun from various non-subject syntactic positions into subject syntactic positions of the same general semantic value, which is impossible with other parts of speech. E.g.:

Mary is a flower-girl.> The flower-girl (you are speaking of) is Mary. He lives in Glasgow.> Glasgow is his place of residence. This happened three years ago.> Three years have elapsed since it happened.

Apart from the cited sentence-part functions, the noun is characterised by some special types of combinability.

In particular, typical of the noun is the prepositional combinability with another noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb. E.g.: an entrance to the house; to turn round the corner; red in the face; far from its destination.

The casal (possessive) combinability characterises the noun alongside of its prepositional combinability with another noun. E.g.: the speech of the President -- the President's speech; the cover of the book -- the book's cover.

English nouns can also easily combine with one another by sheer contact, unmediated by any special lexemic or morphemic means. In the contact group the noun in preposition plays the role of a semantic qualifier to the noun in post-position. E.g.: a cannon ball; a log cabin; a sports event; film festivals.

The lexico-grammatical status of such combinations has presented a big problem for many scholars, who were uncertain as to the linguistic heading under which to treat them: either as one separate word, or a word-group. In the history of linguistics the controversy about the lexico-grammatical status of the constructions in question has received the half-facetious name "The cannon ball problem".

Taking into account the results of the comprehensive analysis undertaken in this field by Soviet linguists, we may define the combination as a specific word-group with intermediary features. Crucial for this decision is the isolability test (separation shift of the qualifying noun) which is performed for the contact noun combinations by an easy, productive type of transformation. Cf.: a cannon ball> a ball for cannon; the court regulation> the regulation of the court; progress report > report about progress; the funds distribution > the distribution of the funds.

The corresponding compound nouns (formed from substantive stems), as a rule, cannot undergo the isolability test with an equal ease. The transformations with the nounal compounds are in fact reduced to sheer explanations of their etymological motivation. The comparatively closer connection between the stems in compound nouns is reflected by the spelling (contact or hyphenated presentation). E.g.: fireplace> place where fire is made; starlight > light coming from stars; story-teller > teller (writer, composer) of stories; theatre-goer > a person who goes to (frequents) theatres.

Contact noun attributes forming a string of several words are very characteristic of professional language. E.g.:

A number of Space Shuttle trajectory optimisation problems were simulated in the development of the algorithm, including three ascent problems and a re-entry problem (From a scientific paper on spacecraft). The accuracy of offshore tanker unloading operations is becoming more important as the cost of petroleum products increases (From a scientific paper on control systems).

As a part of speech, the noun is also characterised by a set of formal features determining its specific status in the lexical paradigm of nomination. It has its word-building distinctions, including typical suffixes, compound stem models, conversion patterns. It discriminates the grammatical categories of gender, number, case, article determination, which will be analysed below.

The cited formal features taken together are relevant for the division of nouns into several subclasses, which are identified by means of explicit classificational criteria. The most general and rigorously delimited subclasses of nouns are grouped into four oppositional pairs.

The first nounal subclass opposition differentiates proper and common nouns. The foundation of this division is "type of nomination". The second subclass opposition differentiates animate and inanimate nouns on the basis of "form of existence". The third subclass opposition differentiates human and non-human nouns on the basis of "personal quality". The fourth subclass opposition differentiates countable and uncountable nouns on the basis of "quantitative structure".

Somewhat less explicitly and rigorously realised is the division of English nouns into concrete and abstract.

The order in which the subclasses are presented is chosen by convention, not by categorially relevant features: each subclass correlation is reflected on the whole of the noun system; this means that the given set of eight subclasses cannot be structured hierarchically in any linguistically consistent sense (some sort of hierarchical relations can be observed only between animate -- inanimate and human -- non-human groupings). Consider the following examples: There were three Marys in our company. The cattle have been driven out into the pastures.

The noun Mary used in the first of the above sentences is at one and the same time "proper" (first subclass division), "animate" (second subclass division), "human" (third subclass division), "countable" (fourth subclass division). The noun cattle used in the second sentence is at one and the same time "common" (first subclass division), "animate" (second subclass division), "non-human" (third subclass division), "uncountable" (fourth subclass division).

The subclass differentiation of nouns constitutes a foundation for their selectional syntagmatic combinability both among themselves and with other parts of speech. In the selectional aspect of combinability, the subclass features form the corresponding selectional bases.

In particular, the inanimate selectional base of combinability can be pointed out between the noun subject and the verb predicate in the following sentence: The sandstone was crumbling.

The animate selectional base is revealed between the noun subject and the verb in the following sentence: The poor creature was laming. (Not: *The tree was laming.)

The human selectional base underlies the connection between the nouns in the following combination: John's love of music.

The phenomenon of subclass selection is intensely analysed as part of current linguistic research work.

I.2 Morphological and syntactical characteristics of a noun

The noun in Modern English has only two grammatical categories, number and case. The existence of case appears to be doubtful and has to be carefully analysed.

The Modern English noun certainly has not got the category of grammatical gender, which is to be found, for example, in Uzbek, French, German and Latin. Not a single noun in Modern English shows any peculiarities in its morphology due to its denoting a male or a female being. Thus, the words husband and wife do not show any difference in their forms due to the peculiarities of their lexical meanings.

Modern English, as most other languages, distinguishes between two numbers, singular and plural.

The essential meaning of singular and plural seems clear enough: the singular number shows that one object is meant, and the plural shows that more than one object is meant. Thus, the opposition is "one -- more than one". This holds good for many nouns: table -- tables, pupil -- pupils, dog -- dogs, etc. However, language facts are not always so simple as that. The category of number in English nouns gives rise to several problems which claim special attention.

First of all, it is to be noted that there is some difference between, say, three houses and three hours. Whereas three houses are three separate objects existing side by side, three hours are a continuous period of time measured by a certain agreed unit of duration. The same, of course, would apply to such expressions as three miles, three acres, etc.

If we now turn to such plurals as waters (e. g. the waters of the Atlantic), or snows (e.g. "A Daughter of the Snows", the title of a story by Jack London), we shall see that we are drifting further away from the original meaning of the plural number. In the first place, no numeral could be used with nouns of this kind. We could not possibly say three waters, or three snows. We cannot say how many waters we mean when we use this noun in the plural number. What, then, is the real difference in meaning between water and waters, snow and snows, etc.? It is fairly obvious that the plural form in every case serves to denote a vast stretch of water (e. g. an ocean), or of snow, or rather of ground covered by snow (e. g. in the arctic regions of Canada), etc. In the case of water and waters wecan press the point still further and state that the water of the Atlantic refers to its physical or chemical properties (e. g. the water of the Atlantic contains a considerable portion of salt), whereas the waters of the Atlantic refers to a geographical idea: it denotes a seascape and has, as such, a peculiar stylistic value which the water of the Atlantic certainly lacks. So we see that between the singular and the plural an additional difference of meaning has developed.

Now, the difference between the two numbers may increase to such a degree that the plural form develops a completely new meaning which the singular has not got at all. Thus, for example, the plural form colours has the meaning 'banner' which is restricted to the plural (e. g. to serve under the colours of liberty). In a similar manner, the plural attentions has acquired the meaning 'wooing' (pay attentions to a young lady). A considerable amount of examples in point have been collected by O. Jespersen.

Since, in these cases, a difference in lexical meaning develops between the plural and the singular, it is natural to say that the plural form has been lexicalised.³ It is not our task here to go into details about the specific peculiarities of meaning which may develop in the plural form of a noun. This is a matter of lexicology rather than of grammar. What is essential from the grammatical viewpoint is the very fact that a difference in meaning which is purely grammatical in its origins is apt under certain conditions to be overshadowed by a lexical difference.

The category of case

The problem of case in Modern English nouns is one of the most vexed problems in English grammar. This can be seen from the fact that views on the subject differ widely. The most usual view is that English nouns have two cases: a common case (e. g. father) and a genitive (or possessive) case (e. g. father's). Side by side with this view there are a number of other views, which can be roughly classified into two main groups: (i) the number of cases in English is more than two, (2) there are no cases at all in English nouns.

The first of these can again be subdivided into the views that the number of cases in English nouns is three, or four, or five, or even an indefinite quantity. Among those who hold that there are no cases in English nouns there is again a variety of opinions as to the relations between the forms father and father's, etc.

Before embarking on a detailed study of the whole problem it is advisable to take a look at the essence of the notion of case. It is more than likely that part, at least, of the discussions and misunderstandings are due to a difference in the interpretation of case as a grammatical category. It seems therefore necessary to give as clear and unambiguous a definition of case as we can. Case is the category of a noun expressing relations between the thing denoted by the noun and other things, or properties, or actions, and manifested by some formal sign in the noun itself. This sign is almost always an inflection, ¹ and it may also be a "zero" sign, i. e. the absence of any sign may be significant as distinguishing one particular case from another. It is obvious that the minimum number of cases in a given language system is two, since the existence of two correlated elements at least is needed to establish a category. (In a similar way, to establish the category of tense in verbs, at least two tenses are needed, to establish the category of mood two moods, etc.). Thus case is part of the morphological system of a language.

Approaching the problem of case in English nouns from this angle, we will not recognise any cases expressed by non-morphological means. It will be therefore impossible to accept the theories of those who hold that case may also be expressed by prepositions (i. e. by the phrase "preposition + noun") or by word order. Such views have indeed been propounded by some scholars, mainly Germans. Thus, it is the view of Max Deutschbein ¹ that Modern English nouns have four cases, viz. nominative, genitive, dative and accusative, of which the genitive can be expressed by the -'s-inflection and by the preposition of, the dative by the preposition to and also by word order, and the accusative is distinguished from the dative by word order alone.

It should be recognised that once we admit prepositions, or word order, or indeed any non-morphological means of expressing case, the number of cases is bound to grow indefinitely. Thus, if we admit that of the pen is a genitive case, and to the pen a dative case, there would seem no reason to deny that with the pen is an instrumental case, in the pen a locative case, etc., etc. Thus the number of cases in Modern English nouns would become indefinitely large. This indeed is the conclusion Academician I. I. Meshchaninov arrived at.² That view would mean abandoning all idea of morphology and confusing forms of a word with phenomena of a completely different kind. Thus, it seems obvious that the number of cases in Modern English nouns cannot be more than two (father and father's). The latter form, father's, might be allowed to retain its traditional name of genitive case, while the former (father) may be termed common case. Of course it must be borne in mind that the possibility of forming the genitive is mainly limited to a certain class of English nouns, viz. those which denote living beings (my father's room, George's sister, the dog's head) and a few others, notably those denoting units of time (a week's absence, this year's elections), and also some substantivised adverbs (to-day's newspaper, yesterday's news, etc.).

It should be noted, however, that this limitation does not appear to be too strict and there even seems to be some tendency at work to use the -'s-forms more extensively. Thus, we can come across such phrases as, a work's popularity, the engine's overhaul life, which certainly are not stock phrases, like at his fingers' ends, or at the water's edge, but freely formed phrases, and they would seem to prove that it is not absolutely necessary for a noun to denote a living being in order to be capable of having an -'s-form. The more exact limits of this possibility have yet to be made out.

The essential meaning of this case would seem to require an exact definition. The result of some recent investigations into the nature of the -'s form ² shows that its meaning is that of possessivity in a wide sense of the term. Alongside of phrases like my father's room, the young man's friends, our master's arrival, etc., we also find such examples as nothing could console Mrs Birch for her daughter's loss, ³ where the implied meaning of course is, 'Mrs Birch lost her daughter'. The real relation between the notions expressed by the two nouns may thus depend on the lexical meaning of these nouns, whereas the form in -'s merely denotes the possessive relation.

Up to now we have seen the form in -'s as a genitive case, and in so far we have stuck to the conception of a two-case system in Modern English nouns.

There are, however, certain phenomena which give rise to doubts about the existence of such a system -- doubts, that is, about the form in -'s being a case form at all. We will now consider some of these phenomena. In the first place, there are the expressions of the type Smith and Brown's office. This certainly means 'the office belonging to both Smith and Brown'. Not only Brown, whose name is immediately connected with the -'s, but also Smith, whose name stands somewhat apart from it, is included in the possessive relation. Thus we may say that the -'s refers, not to Brown alone, but to the whole group Smith and Brown. An example of a somewhat different kind may be seen in the expression the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech, or the Oxford professor of poetry's lecture. These expressions certainly mean, respectively, 'the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer', and 'the lecture of the Oxford professor of poetry'. Thus, the -'s belongs to the groups the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Oxford professor of poetry. The same of course applies to the groups the Duke of Edinburgh's speech, the King of England's residence, and many others.

A further step away from the category of case is taken in the groups somebody else's child, nobody else's business, etc. Here the word immediately preceding the -'s is an adverb which could not by itself stand in the genitive case (there is an obvious difference between somebody else's child and, e. g., to-day's news, or yesterday's paper). The -'s belongs here to the group somebody else as a whole. It cannot, then, be an inflection making an integral part of a word: it is here part of a whole phrase, and, accordingly, a syntactical, not a morphological, element.

Formations of this kind are by no means rare, especially in colloquial style. Thus, in the following sentence the -'s is joined on to a phrase consisting of a noun and a prepositional phrase serving as attribute to it: This girl in my class's mother took us [to the movies] (SALINGER), which of course is equivalent to the mother of this girl (who is) in my class. It is only the lexical meaning of the words, and in the first place the impossibility of the phrase my class's mother, that makes the syntactical connection clear. Compare also: . . .and constantly aimed to suggest a man of the world's outlook and sophistication. .. (The Pelican Guide to English Literature)

The -'s is still farther away from its status as an inflection in such sentences as the following: The blonde I had been dancing with's name was Bernice something -- Crabs or Krebs. (SALINGER); I never knew the woman who laced too tightly's name was Matheson. (FORSTER)

This is the type usually illustrated by Sweet's famous example, the man I saw yesterday's son, ¹ that is, the type "noun + attributive clause + -'s".

Let us have a look at J. D. Salinger's sentence. It is obvious that the -'s belongs to the whole group, the blonde 1 had been dancing with (it is her name he is talking about). It need hardly be emphasised that the preposition with cannot, by itself, be in the genitive case. Such constructions may not be frequent but they do occur and they are perfectly intelligible, which means that they fit into the pattern of the language.

All this seems to prove definitely that in the English language of to-day the -'s can no longer be described as a case inflection in nouns without, at least, many reservations. This subject has been variously treated and interpreted by a number of scholars, both in this country and elsewhere. The following views have been put forward: (1) when the -'s belongs to a noun it is still the genitive ending, and when it belongs to a phrase (including the phrase "noun + attributive clause") it tends to become a syntactical element, viz, a postposition; (2) since the -'s can belong to a phrase (as described above) it is no longer a case inflection even when it belongs to a single noun; (3) the -'s when belonging to a noun, no longer expresses a case, but a new grammatical category, viz. the category of "possession", for example, the possessive form father's exists in contradistinction to the non-possessive form father. An essential argument in favour of this view is, that both the form without -'s and the form with -'s can perform the same syntactic functions; for instance, they can both be subject of the sentence (cf. My father was a happy man and My father's was a happy life). It should be noted that the views listed under (2) and (3) lead to the conclusion that there are no cases in the Modern English noun. ¹ Though the question is still under discussion, and a final agreement on it may have to wait some time, we must recognise that there is much to be said in favour of this view. We will, then, conclude the discussion by saying that apparently the original case system in the English nouns, which has undergone a systematic reduction ever since the earliest times in the history of the language, is at present extinct, and the only case ending to survive in the modern language has developed into an element of a different character -- possibly a particle denoting possession.

Different views have also been expressed concerning the scope of meaning of the -'s. Besides phrases implying possession in the strict sense of the term (my father's books, etc.), the -'s is also found in other contexts, such as my father's friends, my father's arrival, my father's willingness, etc. The question now arises how wide this scope may be. From this point of view it has been customary to point out that the relation expressed by the collocation "noun + + -'s + noun" is often a subjective relation, as in my father's arrival: my father's expresses the subject of the action, cf. my father arrives. This would then correspond to the so-called subjective genitive of inflected languages, such as Uzbek or Latin. It would, however, not do to say that the noun having the -'s could never indicate the object of the action: cf. the example Doughty's famous trial and execution,² where the implied meaning of course is 'Doughty was tried and executed'. This would correspond to the so-called objective genitive of inflected languages. Now, though this particular use would seem to be far less frequent than the subjective, it is by no means impossible or anomalous. Thus it would not be correct to formulate the meaning of the -'s in a way that would exclude the possible objective applications of the -'s-formation.

Parallel use of the -'s-form and the preposition of is seen in the following example: In the light of this it was Lyman's belief and it is mine -- that it is a mans duty and the duty of his friends to see to it that his exit from this world, at least, shall be made with all possible dignity. (TAYLOR)

It should also be noted in this connection that, if both the subject of an action and its object are mentioned, the former is expressed by a noun with -'s preceding the name of the action, and the latter by an of-phrase following it, as in Coleridge's praise of. Shakespeare, etc. The same of course applies to the phrases in which the object is not a living being, as in Einstein's theory of relativity, or Shakespeare's treatment of history.

The -'s-form can also sometimes be used in a sense which may be termed qualitative. This is best illustrated by an example. The phrase an officer's cap can be interpreted in two different ways. For one thing, it may mean 'a cap belonging to a certain officer', and that, of course, is the usual possessive meaning (фуражка офицера). For another thing, it may mean 'a cap of the type worn by officers', and this is its qualitative meaning (the Uzbek equivalent for this is офицерская фуражка). Only the context will show which is meant. Here are a few examples of the qualitative meaning; it is only the context that makes this clear: if it were not for the context the usual possessive meaning might be ascribed to the form. She perceived with all her nerves the wavering of Amanda's confidence, her child's peace of mind, and she understood how fragile it was. (CARY) The meaning of the phrase her child's peace of mind is in itself ambiguous. Taken without the context, it may mean one of two things: (1) 'the peace of mind of her child' (the usual possessive meaning), or (2) 'her peace of mind, which was like a child's' (the qualitative meaning). Outside the context both interpretations would be equally justified. In the sentence as it stands in the text the surrounding words unmistakably point to the second, that is, the qualitative interpretation: the whole sentence deals only with Amanda herself, there is no question of any child of hers, so that the usual possessive meaning is not possible here. A somewhat similar expression is found in the phrase, a small cupid's mouth, which might mean, either the mouth of a small cupid, or a small mouth, like that of a cupid. The context also confirms that the intended meaning is the qualitative one.

A special use of the -'s-forms has also to be mentioned, which may be illustrated by such examples as, I went to the baker's; we spent a week at our uncle's, etc. Yes, Mary, I was going to write to Macmillan's and suggest a biography.. . (GR. GREENE)

The older view was based on the assumption that the -'s-form was an attribute to some noun supposed to be "understood", namely / went to the baker's shop, we spent a week at our uncle's house, etc. However, this interpretation is doubtful. It cannot be proved that a noun following the -'s-form is "understood". It seems more advisable, therefore, to take the facts for what they are and to suppose that the -'s is here developing into a derivative suffix, used to form a noun from another noun. This is also seen in the fact that the famous cathedral in London is very often referred to as St. Paul's. A historical novel by the nineteenth-century English writer W. Harrison Ainsworth bears the title "Old St. Paul's", and it appears to be quite impossible here to claim that this is an attribute to the noun cathedral which is "understood": if we were to restore the word which is supposed to be omitted, we should get Old St. Paul's Cathedral, where the adjective old would seem to modify St. Paul, rather than Cathedral, just as in any other phrase of this type: old John's views, young Peter's pranks, etc.

Case is a grammatical category which shows relation of the noun with other words in a sentence. It is expressed by the form of the noun.

English nouns have two cases: the common case and the genitive case. However, not all English nouns possess the category of case; there are certain nouns, mainly nouns denoting inanimate objects, which cannot be used in the genitive case.

The common case is unmarked, it has no inflexion (zero inflexion) and its meaning is very general.

The genitive case is marked by the apostrophe s (`s).

In writing there are two forms of the genitive: for most nouns it is `s (mother's) and for nouns ending in -s and regular plural nouns only the apostrophe (mothers').

In speech there are four ways of pronunciation of the genitive case.

1. [z] after vowels and voiced consonants: Negro's, dog's;

2. [s] after voiceless consonants: student's;

3. [Iz] after sibilants: prince's, judge's;

4. zero endings: girls', boys'.

The zero form is used:

a) with regular plural nouns - students', drivers', doctors';

b) with Greek nouns in -s of more than one syllable:

Socrates' ['sokrati:z] wife,

Xerxes' ['z? ksi: z] army,

Euripides' |ju?'r?p?di:z] plays.

In many other names ending in the voiced sibilant [z] the normal spelling of the genitive case is with the apostrophe only (though sometimes 's occurs too): Burns' (Burns's) poems, Dickens' (Dickens's) novels.

Names ending in sibilants other than [z] have the regular [?z] in the genitive:

Marx's [s?z] ideas,

Tess's [s?z] misfortunes.

Irregular plural nouns forming their plural by vowel change also have the regular [z] in the genitive:

Children's games,

women's faces.

Compound nouns have 's joined to the final component:

the editor-in-chief's office,

my mother-in-law's garden,

a passer-by's comment.

A specific feature of the English genitive case is the so-called group genitive when `s can be joined:

1) to a group of two coordinated nouns if such a group refers to a single idea (when two persons possess or

are related to something they have in common):

Mum and Dad's room.

John and Mary's car.

2) to a more extensive phrase which may even contain a clause:

the Duke of Norfolk's sister,

the secretary of state's private room,

the man I saw yesterday's son.

3) to a noun (pronoun) + a pronoun group:

someone else's benefit.

4) to a group ending in a numeral:

in an hour or two's time.

The main meaning of the genitive case is that of possession, hence the traditional term `the possessive case'. This general sense undergoes a number of modifications under the influence of the lexical meaning of both the noun in the genitive case and the noun it modifies.

The main modifications of this meaning are:

1. The idea of belonging: John's coat, Mary's car.

2. Different kinds of relations, such as:

a) relation of the whole to its parts: John's leg, the cat's tail;

b) personal or social relations: John's wife, John's friend.

Besides the genitive case retains some of its old meanings:

subjective relations:

Chekhov's observation = Chekhov observed;

the doctor's arrival =- the doctor arrived;

authorship:

Byron's poem, Shakespeare's tragedy;

objective relations:

Caesar's murder = Caesar was murdered;

Jule's arrest = Jule was arrested;

measure:

an hour's trip, a mile's distance.

In some cases the form 's completely loses the meaning of possession and comes to denote a quality, as in man's blood, woman's work (serving in works canteen or a transport cafe, is generally regarded as woman's work), his sly idiot's smile - идиотская улыбка, you've got angel's eyes -ангельские глазки, this is a women's college - женский колледж.

The use of the genitive case and its equivalent of-phrase

The genitive case is used:

1. With nouns denoting persons and animals.

John's idea, the swallow's nest, the mare's back.

With other nouns (denoting inanimate objects or abstract notions) the of + noun phrase is used: the back of a train, the legs of a table.

2. With nouns denoting time and distance, such as minute, moment, hour, day, week, month, year, inch, foot, mile and substantivized adverbs: today, yesterday, tomorrow, etc.

a moment's delay an hour's drive today's newspaper a week's time a night's rest	a month's absence a mile's distance a few minutes' silence yesterday's telephone conversation

With these nouns the of-phrase is either impossible, as in the first three examples, or if it is possible the two variants are not interchangeable.

today's papers - сегодняшние газеты

the papers of today - газеты сегодняшнего дня

3. With the names of countries and towns.

Britain's national museums

Canada's population

London's ambulance services

4. With the names of newspapers and nouns denoting different kinds of organizations.

The Guardian's analysis, the Tribune's role, the company's plans, the firm's endeavours, the Coal Board's Offer, the government's policy, the organisation's executive board, the Geographical Society's gold medal.

5. Often with the nouns world, nation, country, city, town:

the world's top guitarists, the nation's wealth.

6. With the nouns ship, boat, car:

the ship's crew, the car's wheel.

7. With nouns denoting planets: sun, moon, earth:

the sun's rays, this earth's life.

8. With some inanimate nouns in the following set expressions:

to one's heart's content (desire), at death's door, at arm's length, out of harm's way, a hair's breadth, a needle's eye, at a stone's throw, to move at a snail's pace, at the water's edge.

The category of gender

There is a peculiarly regular contradiction between the presentation of gender in English by theoretical treatises and practical manuals. Whereas theoretical treatises define the gender subcategorisation of English nouns as purely lexical or "semantic", practical manuals of English grammar do invariably include the description of the English gender in their subject matter of immediate instruction.

In particular, a whole ten pages of A. I. Smirnitsky's theoretical "Morphology of English" are devoted to proving the non-existence of gender in English either in the grammatical, or even in the strictly lexico-grammatical sense. On the other hand, the well-known practical "English grammar" by M. A. Ganshina and N. M. Vasilevskaya, after denying the existence of grammatical gender in English by way of an introduction to the topic, still presents a pretty comprehensive description of the would-be non-existent gender distinctions of the English noun as a part of speech .

That the gender division of nouns in English is expressed not as variable forms of words, but as nounal classification (which is not in the least different from the expression of substantive gender in other languages, including Uzbek), admits of no argument. However, the question remains, whether this classification has any serious grammatical relevance. Closer observation of the corresponding lingual data cannot but show that the English gender does have such a relevance.

The category of gender is expressed in English by the obligatory correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns of the third person. These serve as specific gender classifiers of nouns, being potentially reflected on each entry of the noun in speech.

The category of gender is strictly oppositional. It is formed by two oppositions related to each other on a hierarchical basis.

One opposition functions in the whole set of nouns, dividing them into person (human) nouns and non-person (non-human) nouns. The other opposition functions in the subset of person nouns only, dividing them into masculine nouns and feminine nouns. Thus, the first, general opposition can be referred to as the upper opposition in the category of gender, while the second, partial opposition can be referred to as the lower opposition in this category.

As a result of the double oppositional correlation, a specific system of three genders arises, which is somewhat misleadingly represented by the traditional terminology: the neuter (i.e. non-person) gender, the masculine (i.e. masculine person) gender, the feminine (i.e. feminine person) gender.

The strong member of the upper opposition is the human subclass of nouns, its sememic mark being "person", or "personality". The weak member of the opposition comprises both inanimate and animate non-person nouns. Here belong such nouns as tree, mountain, love, etc.; cat, swallow, ant, etc.; society, crowd, association, etc.; bull and cow, cock and hen, horse and mare, etc.

In cases of oppositional reduction, non-person nouns and their substitute (it) are naturally used in the position of neutralisation. E.g.:

Suddenly something moved in the darkness ahead of us. Could it be a man, in this desolate place, at this time of night? The object of her maternal affection was nowhere to be found. It had disappeared, leaving the mother and nurse desperate.

The strong member of the lower opposition is the feminine subclass of person nouns, its sememic mark being "female sex". Here belong such nouns as woman, girl, mother, bride, etc. The masculine subclass of person nouns comprising such words as man, boy, father, bridegroom, etc. makes up the weak member of the opposition.

A great many person nouns in English are capable of expressing both feminine and masculine person genders by way of the pronominal correlation in question. These are referred to as nouns of the "common gender". Here belong such words as person, parent, friend, cousin, doctor, president, etc. E.g.:

The President of our Medical Society isn't going to be happy about the suggested way of cure. In general she insists on quite another kind of treatment in cases like that.

The capability of expressing both genders makes the gender distinctions in the nouns of the common gender into a variable category. On the other hand, when there is no special need to indicate the sex of the person referents of these nouns, they are used neutrally as masculine, i.e. they correlate with the masculine third person pronoun.

In the plural, all the gender distinctions are neutralised in the immediate explicit expression, though they are rendered obliquely through the correlation with the singular.

Alongside of the demonstrated grammatical (or lexico-grammatical, for that matter) gender distinctions, English nouns can show the sex of their referents lexically, either by means of being combined with certain notional words used as sex indicators, or else by suffixal derivation. Cf.: boy-friend, girl-friend; man-producer, woman-producer; washer-man, washer-woman; landlord, landlady; bull-calf, cow-calf; cock-sparrow, hen-sparrow; he-bear, she-bear; master, mistress; actor, actress; executor, executrix; lion, lioness; sultan, sultana; etc.

One might think that this kind of the expression of sex runs contrary to the presented gender system of nouns, since the sex distinctions inherent in the cited pairs of words refer not only to human beings (persons), but also to all the other animate beings. On closer observation, however, we see that this is not at all so. In fact, the referents of such nouns as jenny-ass, or pea-hen, or the like will in the common use quite naturally be represented as it, the same as the referents of the corresponding masculine nouns jack-ass, pea-cock, and the like. This kind of representation is different in principle from the corresponding representation of such nounal pairs as woman -- man, sister -- brother, etc.

On the other hand, when the pronominal relation of the non-person animate nouns is turned, respectively, into he and she, we can speak of a grammatical personifying transposition, very typical of English. This kind of transposition affects not only animate nouns, but also a wide range of inanimate nouns, being regulated in every-day language by cultural-historical traditions. Compare the reference of she with the names of countries, vehicles, weaker animals, etc.; the reference of he with the names of stronger animals, the names of phenomena suggesting crude strength and fierceness, etc.

As we see, the category of gender in English is inherently semantic, i.e. meaningful in so far as it reflects the actual features of the named objects. But the semantic nature of the category does not in the least make it into "non-grammatical", which follows from the whole content of what has been said in the present work.

In Uzbek, German, and many other languages characterised by the gender division of nouns, the gender has purely formal features that may even "run contrary" to semantics. Suffice it to compare such Uzbek words as стакан -- он, чашка--она, блюдце -- оно, as well as their German correspondences das Glas -- es, die Tasse -- sie, der Teller -- er, etc. But this phenomenon is rather an exception than the rule in terms of grammatical categories in general.

Moreover, alongside of the "formal" gender, there exists in Uzbek, German and other "formal gender" languages meaningful gender, featuring, within the respective idiomatic systems, the natural sex distinctions of the noun referents.

In particular, the Uzbek gender differs idiomatically from the English gender in so far as it divides the nouns by the higher opposition not into "person -- non-person" ("human-- non human"), but into "animate --inanimate", discriminating within the former (the animate nounal set) between masculine, feminine, and a limited number of neuter nouns. Thus, the Uzbek category of gender essentially divides the noun into the inanimate set having no meaningful gender, and the animate set having a meaningful gender. In distinction to this, the English category of gender is only meaningful, and as such it is represented in the nounal system as a whole.

The noun has certain syntactical characteristics.

The chief syntactical functions of the noun in the sentence are those of the subject and the object. But it might be used as an attribute or a predicative.

The sun was rising in all his splendid beauty. [2, p.32] (subject)

Troy and Yates followed the tourists. [5, p.59] (object)

He (Bosinney) was an architect… [3, p.83] (predicative)

Mary brought in the fruit on a tray and with it a glass bowl, and a blue dish… [5, p.78] (attribute; the noun glass is used in the common case)

The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from his father's yacht. [5, p.104] (attribute; the noun father is used in the genitive case)

A noun preceded by a preposition (a prepositional phrase) may be used as attribute, prepositional indirect object, and adverbial modifier.

To the left were clean panes of glass. [1, p.50] (attribute)

Bicket did not answer, his throat felt too dry. He had heard of the police. [3, p.96] (object)

She went into the drawing-room and lighted the fire. [2, p.254] (adverbial modifier)

"Stop everything, Laura!" cried Jose in astonishment.[2, p.261] (adverbial modifier)

The noun is generally associated with the article. Because of the comparative scarcity of morphological distinctions in English in some cases only articles show that the word is noun.

The noun can be modified by an adjective, a pronoun, by another noun or by verbals. The categorical functional properties of the noun are determined by its semantic properties.

The most characteristic substantive function of the noun is that of the subject in the sentence, since the referent of the subject is the person or thing immediately named. The function of the object in the sentence is also typical of the noun as the substance word. Other syntactic functions, i.e. attributive, adverbial, and even predicative, although performed by the noun with equal ease, are not immediately characteristic of its substantive quality as such. It should be noted that, while performing these non-substantive functions, the noun essentially differs from the other parts of speech used in similar sentence positions. This may be clearly shown by transformations shifting the noun from various non-subject syntactic positions into subject syntactic positions of the same general semantic value, which is impossible with other parts of speech. E.g.:

Mary is a flower-girl.> the flower-girl (you are speaking of) is Mary. He lives in Glasgow.> Glasgow is his place of residence. This happened three years ago.> Three years have elapsed since it happened.

Apart from the cited sentence-part functions, the noun is characterised by some special types of combinability.

In particular, typical of the noun is the prepositional combinability with another noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb. E.g.: an entrance to the house; to turn round the corner; red in the face; far from its destination.

The casual (possessive) combinability characterises the noun alongside of its prepositional combinability with another noun. E.g.: the speech of the President -- the President's speech; the cover of the book -- the book's cover.

English nouns can also easily combine with one another by sheer contact, unmediated by any special lexemic or morphemic means. In the contact group the noun in preposition plays the role of a semantic qualifier to the noun in post-position. E.g.: a cannon ball; a log cabin; a sports event; film festivals.

The lexico-grammatical status of such combinations has presented a big problem for many scholars, who were uncertain as to the linguistic heading under which to treat them: either as one separate word, or a word-group. In the history of linguistics the controversy about the lexico-grammatical status of the constructions in question has received the half-facetious name "The cannon ball problem". [23]

Taking into account the results of the comprehensive analysis undertaken in this field by Soviet linguists, we may define the combination as a specific word-group with intermediary features. Crucial for this decision is the isolability test (separation shift of the qualifying noun) which is performed for the contact noun combinations by an easy, productive type of transformation. Cf.: a cannon ball> a ball for cannon; the court regulation> the regulation of the court; progress report > report about progress; the funds distribution > the distribution of the funds.

The corresponding compound nouns (formed from substantive stems), as a rule, cannot undergo the isolability test with an equal ease. The transformations with the noun compounds are in fact reduced to sheer explanations of their etymological motivation. The comparatively closer connection between the stems in compound nouns is reflected by the spelling (contact or hyphenated presentation). E.g.: fireplace> place where fire is made; starlight > light coming from stars; story-teller > teller (writer, composer) of stories; theatre-goer > a person who goes to (frequents) theatres.