The semantic features of the noun.

The noun possesses the categorial grammatical meaning of substance (‘thingness’). Nouns are divided into several subclasses, which can be grouped into four oppositional pairs.

1) According to the type of nomination they may be proper and common;

2) According to the form of existence they may be animate and inanimate;

3) According to their personal quality animate nouns fall into human and non-human;

4) According to their quantitative structure there may be countable and uncountable nouns.

The division of English nouns into concrete and abstractis realised less explicitly and rigorously.

2) The morphological features of the noun:

a) the changeable forms of number and case;

b) the specific suffixal forms of derivation (prefixes in English do not discriminate parts of speech as such);

c) compound stem models, conversion patterns;

In accordance with the morphological structure of the stems all nouns can be classified into: simple, derived ( stem + affix, affix + stem); compound ( stem+ stem) and composite ( the Hague ).