Hour, day, night, morning, evening, week, year, month

(names of months including), season (names of seasons including), century and so on; b) personified nouns used in spoken language or in fiction, mainly in poetry: 1) sun, moon, earth, river, water, ocean, world, wind, 2) ship, boat, vessel, etc.; 3) country, city, town (names of towns and countries including); 4) abstract nouns like duty, music, death. For example: a week's holiday, year's ab­sence, a winter's day, night's rest, wind's rustle, river's brink, ship's crew, town's busy streets, duty's call, music's voice.

The possessive 's can be used with no following noun: Whose is that? — Mary's.

The 's possessive is also used without a following noun in several other cases. Shops are usually referred to in this way: a baker's, a butcher's, the barber's, the hairdress's, i.e. л baker's, a butcher's, etc. shop.

People's places of living can be referred to in this way when the host-guest relationship is meant: at my brother's (i.e. at my brother's place).

Ш EXERCISES

1. Write down the plurals of the following nouns and check their pronunciation in a dictionary where necessary:

Ray, street, bacillus, bell, corpus, lily of the valley, diagnosis, warf, antenna, tomato, field-mouse, radius, ad-ress, nerve, criterion, opinion, series, nebula, bacterium, doing, growth, Roman, Frenchman, appendix, bridge, compass, story, storey, formula, looker-on, bureau, bro-

ther-in-law, ox, fish, symposium, thesis, passer-by, da­tum, sheep, fountain pen, breakdown, woman-hater, trousseau, assistant director.

2. Define the morphological structure of the italicized nouns in the texts given below:

a) All language-teaching methods are necessarily based on some sort of analysis, for the very process of making a method involves the breaking down of the lan­guage into the elements which are to be taught. Langua­ge-teaching analysis depends ultimately on the recognition of these elements. The more we know about what a par­ticular language contains, the more we can analyse the teaching of it.

b) The education systems exert a conservative inf­luence on the national standards, the mass media promo­te understanding of differences and influence adoptions from other national varieties, particularly Americanisms. On the other hand, maintenance of English as a second language is in doubt in the long term. Some countries are likely to abandon English as an official language in favour of local languages when political circumstances permit the substitutions. Some are beginning to turn away from the mother tongue standards to recognize their own varieties as acceptable models.

c) Mother Goose rhymes have an appeal that lasts from one generation to another. How may we account for their longevity? What is there in these simple rhymes that appeal so strongly to each generation of children and even to adults fortunate enough to have retained some of the refreshing naivety of their early years?

3. Make up unstable compounds out of the following word-combinations:

A frame for a picture, a bag made of leather, a sa­lesman of cars, a street in a city, a graduate of a univer­sity, a player of records, a programme on television, a teacher of history, a society showing films, a bag for shopping, a basket for waste paper, a book for reference, a stool for feet, a brush for teeth, a can for petrol, a shar­pener for pencils, a stop for buses, a ring for keys, a shirt made of cotton.

4. Use the possessive case of the noun instead of the following word-combinations:

a) An outfitter for men, clothers for children, a hair­dresser for women, a club for wives;

b) the news of yesterday, the programme of the Ins­titute, the name of the street, the appearance of the garden, the publication of the book, the arrival of the plane, the work of an hour, a stay of a week, a thought lasting a moment, a journey lasting a day, the papers pub­lished today, the rays of the sun, the wool of the sheep, the events of the day.

5. Analyse the italicized nouns in terms of classes and categories in the following extracts:

a) Many of the early theories on the origin of language resulted from man's interest in his own origins and his own nature. Because man and language are so closely related, it was believed that if one knew how,

when and where language arose, perhaps one would know how, when and where man arose.

b) About the time Columbus was exploring the coast of the " New World", William Caxton was producing the first books ever printed in the English language. Of course, English had been spoken and written for many centuries before this — in England. But in the time of Columbus and Caxton hardly anyone outside England used the English language.

c) In Tolstoy's masterpieces all is probable and typi­cal of human life. These are the sort of things that might happen to anyone. Things like them have probably hap­pened to thousands. These are such people as we might meet any day. We can say without reservation, «This is what life is like».

6. Translate the following sentences into English:

1. Я спросил у доктора совета. 2. Каковы послед­ние новости о ходе выборов? 3. Его фирма разори­лась, и он потерял все свои деньги. 4. Наконец, после многолетних странствий он вернулся домой. 5. Его поведение оставляет желать лучшего. 6. Эта книга со­держит полезную информацию для пользователей персональных компьютеров. 7. Мы получили сообще­ние о том, что переговоры успешно продолжаются. 8. Компания обратилась в суд, чтобы получить разреше­ние на пересмотр условий контракта. 9. Во время пожара в здании царил настоящий хаос. 10. Для вы­полнения этой работы необходим опыт. 11. Все гово­рят, что у меня красивые волосы. 12. Твоя одежда грязная. Чем ты занимался?

CHAPTER II Article

2.1. Definition

The article is a specific class of words that determine or specify nouns in the most general way. Therefore, the article is the main formal feature characteristic of the noun. Note that in the British tradition, alongside with pronouns and numerals used attributively, articles are regarded as determiners. (See also 4.1. and 5./.)

There are 3 types of articles: 1) the indefinite artic­le — a(n); 2) the definite article — the; 3) the zero article or the meaningful absence of the article.

2.2. Functions of article

The indefinite article a(n) has 2 forms: a and an. A is

used before a consonant sound: a car, a book, a pain, a

youth. It has 2 pronunciations: 1) weak [a] and 2) strong [ei]. In normal everyday speech the weak form of the indefinite article is used while its strong form is intended to emphasize the noun it determines.

An is used before a vowel sound: an object, an idea, an hour.

The indefinite article is to refer a person or a thing denoted by the noun to a certain class of similar persons or objects. It shows that the noun is taken in a relatively general sense. Otherwise stated, the indefinite article per­forms a classifying function. For example: This is a man.

(Not a woman) / have just seen a young woman waiting for you. (Not an old woman) She is a doctor. (Not a tea­cher) London is a big city. (Not a village) There is an apple for you. (Not an orange) / have a car. (Not a bicycle)

The indefinite article is always used to point to a single person, thing, or notion and thus determines only countable nouns in the singular.

The definite article the has 2 pronunciations: 1) weak, before vowels and 2) strong. Its strong form is normally used before vowels and for emphatic purposes.

The definite article is to identify and individualize a person or a thing denoted by a noun. It demonstrates that the noun is taken in its concrete, individual sense. Thus the definite article performs an individualizing function. For example: This is the man I spoke to yesterday. I saw the young woman you had told me about. London is one of the biggest cities in the world. The apple is for you.

The definite article may determine nouns of any class both in the singular and plural.

The zero article or the meaningful absence of the article is to signify that the noun is taken in an abstract sense, expressing the most generalized idea of the person, thing, or notion denoted. Thus the zero article performs a generalizing function and basically may refer to nouns of any class.

Article and pronoun

Although both articles and pronouns, mainly de­monstrative and indefinite ones, determine nouns, they do

so in a different way. First, the article determination of nouns is obligatory for the article is indispensable to signal the lexical meaning of a noun in terms of the main lexical oppositions: proper/common, abstract/concrete, coun­table/uncountable, animate/inanimate, human/non-hu­man. (See 1.3.) Second, whereas the function of the article is to specify nouns in the most general way, the demonstrative pronouns this/these, that/those and the in­definite pronouns some, any are used to define persons, things or notions denoted by nouns in relation to other persons, things or notions, their function being to present a noun in a more detailed way, with a higher degree of certainty. Compare: A man called in while you were out. (Not a woman) — Some man/some men called in while you were out. (A man/men strange to me.) Have an apple. (Not an orange) — Have any apple you like. (Every apple, no matter which one) Will you give me the pen? (Which is mentioned and understood by both speakers) — Will you give me this pen? (The one I am pointing to).

Note that the use of the demonstrative pronouns is arbitrary though in most cases the definite article is more idiomatic. The use of the indefinite pronouns is arbitrary in the case they are to define countables both in the singular and plural. (See the above examples.) Their use may be obligatory if they are referred to uncountable nouns and countables in the plural. For example: There is some butter in the fridge. There isn't any jam in the cupboard. Have you got any money? (uncountables) There are some books on the shelf. There aren 't any nails in the box.

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