Noun and the basic noun phrase

2.1 The noun phrase

 

Sentence members can be realized by morphological elements in very different forms. The subject as main sentence part is always a noun phrase ( NP ).

A noun phrase is characterized by a nominal element as its head. The nominal element may be expressed by a noun, a pronoun, a numeral, an infinitive and a gerund: e.g. John; the child; the first: how to do it; his working hard.

In certain contexts, the phrase is often reduced to a pronoun which has the same reference as the noun phrase: Billy turned up three years later. He had turned theatre-critic for a new magazine.

The basic noun phrase consists of a determiner (T) and noun (N).

NP

T	N
the	table
a	book
two	pens
no	money
all	students
his	advice
ø	pencils
ø	John

 

But a noun phrase may be a long and complex structure having a noun as head, preceded by other words such as an adjective or another noun, and followed by a prepositional phrase or by an attributive clause, or by both: e.g. a pretty girl; London buses; the whole history of mankind; the probabilities that lay ahead; the gaps in his life which were unknown to her.

In describing complex noun phrases, we distinguish three components:

(a) the head, around which the other components cluster;

(b) the premodifier, which comprises all the words placed before the head - adjectives and nouns;

(c) the postmodifier, comprising all the words placed after the head - prepositional phrases, non-finite forms and attributive clauses.

Before articles and demonstrative pronouns which function as determiners in a noun phrase such quantifiers as all, both, half can occur. They are called predeterminers.

Words which follow determiners but precede adjectives used as preremodifiers are called postdeterminers. They include ordinal and cardinal numerals.

Predeter- miner	Deter- miner	Postdeter- miner	Premo- difier	Head	Postmo- difier
	a		pretty	girl
			London	buses
	the		whole	history	of mankind
all	the	three	long	stories

 

2.2 Classification of nouns

 

The noun is a notional part of speech characterized by the lexico-grammatical meaning of substantivity, i.e. thingness. It denotes living beings (man, bird, etc), inanimate objects (table, necklace, etc), certain facts, phenomena and their qualities regarded as substances (strike, love, simplicity, etc).

The noun has сase (boy – boy’s) and number (boy -boys) distinctions.

Unlike Old English where each noun was assigned to some gender: masculine, feminine, or neuter, Modern English makes no gender distinctions. The forms of the 3^rd person singular of the personal pronouns (HE, SHE) functioning as noun substitutes convey the biological category “sex”. HE refers to a person or animal regarded as male; she to a person or animal regarded as female. In a number of cases the distinction between male and female realizes itself through lexical items: king - queen, man - woman, god - goddess, usher - usherette, she-goat - he-goat, tom-cat - pussy-cat.

Syntactically, the noun may function in the sentence as subject (e.g. The

_{Attr Obj}

baby was asleep), object, attribute, adverbial modifier(e.g. He wrote a film script

_Adv

that year) etc.

 

2.3

 

Semantically, all nouns can be divided into two main groups - proper and common nouns.

Proper nouns are names having unique reference. They include personal names (John, Brown), geographical names (The Ussr, England, The Mississippi), names of public institutions (The British Council, Scotland Yard), ships (The Queen Elizabeth, The Orleans), newspapers (The Daily Mail, The Observer), etc. Names of the months and the days of the week also belong here (March, June; Monday, Thursday).

Proper nouns may become common nouns: e.g. a mackintosh - a coat made of water proof material patented by С. Mackintosh; rugby - a kind of football named after a town with a public school in it which started the game at the beginning of the 20^th century.

Common nouns are names applied to any member of a class of living beings (boy, cat) or things (tree, chair), collections of similar individuals (police, crowd) or things (linen, crockery) regarded as a unit, materials (water, gold) or abstract notions (peace, beauty). Accordingly, class nouns, collective nouns, material nouns, and abstract nouns are distinguished.

Common nouns may become proper names: e.g. the City - the business quarter of London; the Globe - a theatre at the time of Shakespeare.

 

2.4

 

Common nouns are usually subdivided into count nouns, also called countables, and non-count nouns, or uncountables.

Countables, as the name implies, denote objects that can be counted. They can be either concrete (boy, house) or abstract (idea, suggestion).

Uncountables or mass nouns are used only in the singular and may be treated as “singularia tantum”. To this group belong:

(a) concrete nouns, mass nouns included

(i) names of materials: sand, bread, hair, etc;

(ii) some collective nouns: fruit, shrubbery, furniture, etc;

(b) abstract nouns: permission, advice, progress, etc;

(c) nouns ending in - s, which is part of the root:

(i) names of the branches of man’s activity: gymnastics, linguistics, mathematics, physics, phonetics, acoustics, statistics, economics;

(ii) names of diseases and of abnormal states of the body and mind: measles, mumps, diabetes, creeps, hysterics, etc;

(iii) names of games: billiards, dominoes, draughts, darts, bowls;

(iv) names of cities and organizations: Algiers (Алжир), Athens (Афины), the United Nations.

Uncountable nouns are never determined by the indefinite article; they may be used with the pronouns some, much, little.

Note:

[a] Used in the sense of different sorts of materials and items made of the material denoted by the mass nouns, or separate concrete manifestations of the qualities denoted by abstract nouns, singularia tantum nouns become countables: an iron, a hair, a joy, teas, cheeses, a copper;

[b] Some singularia tantum mass nouns take an -s and become pluralia tantum with a new meaning: fruits (плоды), mineral/neutral waters, sands (= desert)

[c] The nouns ending in - ics may function as pluralia tantum when abilities, methods, ideas or concrete objects exhibiting the respective qualities are meant:

politics (sg) an academic subject, a profession; (pl) political views: What are your politics?;

acoustics (sg)an academic subject; (pl) sound quality: The acoustics in the Festival Hall are extremely good;

mathematics (sg) an academic subject; (pl) calculations: His mathematics are very poor.

ceramics (sg) the art of making bricks, pots; (pl) articles produced this way.

 

2.5

 

Collective nouns fall under the following divisions:

(a) Nouns that are used in the singular and plural: audience, class, club, committee, company, congregation, council, crew, crowd, family, gang, government, group, jury, mob, staff, team, union, (younger and older) generation, orchestra, Parliament, choir, chorus.

When such a noun is used in the singular it can be followed by a singular or plural verb. The verb is singular and the noun can combine with the relative pronouns which/that and can be replaced by it when the members of the group denoted by the noun are thought of as a single unit, in an impersonal fashion, i.e. as a whole group:

The present government, which hasn’t been in power long, is trying to control inflation. It isn’t having much success.

The verb is plural and the noun can combine with the relative pronoun who and be replaced by they or them when the members of the group denoted by the noun are thought of in a more personal way, i.e. as a number of individuals that make up the group:

The government, who are looking for a quick victory, are calling for a general election soon. They expect to be re-elected. A lot of people are giving them their support.

(b) Nouns that occur only in the singular, but with either a singular or plural verb: the proletariat, the majority, the minority, the military, the public, the youth, the infantry, offspring

The public welcomes / welcome the decision; Give the public what it wants/ they want; Her offspring is like her in every respect (one child); Her offspring are like her in every respect (more than one child).

(c) ‘Singularia tantum, ’ i.e. nouns that are used only in the singular with a singular verb: *

advice* baggage* information* equipment* furniture*	health homework* news* knowledge* luggage*	money music* wealth progress research*	traffic travel success weather linen	permission behaviour chaos work scenery
hair*	machinery*	shopping	accommodation (BrE)

The money they are getting for the finished article is more than ever.

(d) ‘Pluralia tantum, ’ i.e. nouns that occur only in the plural with a plural verb: **

arms* * effects** outskirts brains** troops**

belongings means** particulars riches wages

clothes funds** premises** quarters** tropics**

congratulations goods regards** stalls** greens**

contents looks** remains stairs**

customs** odds (in betting) savings** surroundings

earnings papers** spirits** thanks

‘Pair’ nouns, referring to things consisting of two equal parts have no singular form and must be preceded by ‘a pair of’ to emphasize countability. They are also included into the pluralia tantum words: trousers, glasses, jeans, binoculars, knickers, leggings, pants, pyjamas (AmE pajamas), scissors, shorts, spectacles, tights, tweezers, scales, shears, tongs, pincers, pliers***.

(e) Nouns that occur only in the singular, but with a plural verb. They are called multitude nouns. The most important are: cattle, people, police, poultry, vermin, livestock, clergy, gentry.

Extra police are needed here.

 

Notes:

[a] The plural form of the verb with the nouns in section (a) is more widespread in British English than in American English.

[b] Some proper nouns (e.g. football teams, national proper nouns referring to a sportsteam) can be used as collectives, similarly to those treated above:

Germany have/has beaten England.

Arsenal are/is playing away on Saturday.

[c] National names in the plural (e.g. the Bahamas, the United States, the Netherlands) behave like collective nouns treated either discretely or non-discretely:

The Philippines has its problems like any other country.

The Philippines consist of a group of very beautiful islands.

[d] The noun people may be singular and plural when it means “nation, tribe, race”: The Scots are a proud people; the English-speaking peoples. When it is used as subject it takes a singular verb: A brave and intelligent peoplelives here. Folk in the sense of ‘people, persons’ is normally used without ‘s’ in BrE (Some folk just don’t know how to behave) whereas AmE prefers ‘folks’, which in BrE normally is reserved for familiar address and the sense ‘family, parents’ (I’d like you to meet my folks).

 

2.6. Number

 

The English number system comprises singular, which denotes “one”, and plural, which denotes “more than one”. Count nouns have two numbers: they are always either singular or plural. The singular form is a stem of the noun with a zero inflection (book, pen, bush). The plural of most count nouns is formed by adding an inflection - s or - es to the stem (books, pens, bushes). This rule applies to all newly coined nouns, such as discotheque - ['diskqtek] -discotheques ['diskqteks].

Regular plurals

 

Pronunciation

The plural ending - s is read [s] if the stem ends in a voiceless consonant (books, lips).

The plural ending - s is read [z] if the stem ends in a vowel (keys) or a voiced consonant (bells).

If the stem ends in a sibilant the inflection - es read as [iz] is added (matches, brushes, buses, boxes).

Spelling

Nouns ending in -o preceded by a consonant take - es in the plural: hero - heroes, potato - potatoes, Negro - Negroes, torpedo - torpedoes.

If a noun ends in -o preceded by a vowel (cuckoo, video, radio) or it is an abbreviation (photo, kilo, disco), or a musical term of Italian origin (piano, concerto, solo) or a proper noun ending in –o (Eskimo, Filipino), only - s is added: cuckoos, radios, photos, discos, pianos, solos, Filipinos.

The following nouns have plurals in - s and - es: archipelago [, a: ki'peligou], flamingo, volcano, buffalo, cargo, halo, mosquito, tornado, motto.

If the final letter of the stem is - y preceded by a consonant the - y is replaced by - i and the ending - es is added (story - stories), otherwise the - y remains unchanged and - s is added (boy - boys).

There are a few instances where the ‘s is commonly used to form a plural:

(a) after letters

Watch your p’s and q’s.

(b) after abbreviations and years occasionally since the addition of –s is their normal means of plurality (e.g. VPs or VP’s, MPs or MP’s, the 1890s or 1890’s).

 

2.8. Irregular plurals

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