Lecture 5.
The Noun.
General Characteristics.
The noun is the central nominative lexemic unit of language.
As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised by three criteria: semantic (the meaning), morphological (the form and grammatical categories) and syntactical (functions, distribution).
The features of the noun within this triad are, correspondingly, the following:
Multitude plural
This type is characterized by the use of the absolute plural with countable nouns in the singular form (collective nouns are changed into ‘nouns of multitude’):
The family were gathered round the table. The government are unanimous in disapproving the move of the opposition.
Descriptive uncountable plural
This type is characterized by the use of the absolute plural with uncountable nouns in the plural form and results in expressive transposition:
the sands of the desert; the snows of the Arctic; the waters of the ocean; the fruits of the toil; etc
The limited case theory (H. Sweet, O. Jespersen).
It has since been radically developed by the Soviet scholars A. I. Smirnitsky, L. S. Barkhudarov and others.
This theory recognises a limited inflexional system of two cases in English:
1) The Common/Non-Genitive Case (unfeatured) and
2) The Possessive/Genitive Case (featured).
This opposition is effected in full with animate nouns and in a restricted use with inanimate nouns.
The theory of the possessive postposition (postpositional theory)
According to it the English noun has completely lost the category of case in the course of its historical development. All the nounal cases are considered as extinct, and the ‘genitive case’ is in reality a combination of a noun with a postposition.
The solution of the problem is a critical synthesis of the positive statements of the two theories: the limited case theory and the possessive postposition theory.
A two case declension of nouns is recognised in English:
The common case (the direct case)
The genitive case (the only oblique case).
The case system in English is founded on a particle expression. The particle nature of -'s is evident from the fact that it is added in post-position both to individual nouns and to nounal word-groups of various status, rendering the same essential semantics of appurtenance. Within the expression of the genitive in English, two not inflexional, but particle case-forms subtypes are to be recognised:
The word genitive;