Abstract nouns may change their meaning and become class nouns. This change is marked by the use of the article and of the plural number:

beauty a beauty beauties

sight a sight sights

He was responsive to beauty and here was cause to respond. (London)

She was a beauty. (Dickens)

... but she isn't one of those horrid regular beauties. (Aldington)

2.3 English Nouns in Speech.

2.3.1 Noun Grammemes in Speech

An English noun lexeme may contain four words at most (boy, boys, boy's, boys'). Each of these words, as we know, represents not only the lexeme, but a certain grammeme as well. The grammeme represented by the word boy, for instance, includes all the English words having the two actual grammatical meanings of 'common case' and 'singular number' (girl, teacher, mile, etc.). The word book does not belong to this grammeme because it has only one actual grammatical meaning, that of 'singular number'. The meaning of 'common case' is only potential or oblique. So book represents another noun grammeme. The word England represents a different grammeme with the actual grammatical meaning of 'common case' (cf. England's) and the oblique grammatical meaning of 'singular number'.

If we assume that each grammatical meaning can be actual and oblique, there are four grammatical meanings of 'number', and they can be combined with four 'case' meanings each, to constitute 16 grammemes. In reality, however, the 'possessive case' meaning cannot be oblique in English, i. e. there are no words with the form and combinability of a 'possessive case' member of a case opposeme that have no 'common case' opposites. Nouns like St. Paul's, the baker's, denoting places, have certainly no opposites with the same lexical meaning and the 'common case' form, but their distribution resembles rather the distribution of 'common case' nouns (cf. at the baker's, from the baker's and at the shop, from Иге shop). If, however, we regard them as constituting a separate grammeme with the oblique meanings of 'singular number' and 'possessive case', we may speak of 13 noun grammemes in English. In the table1 (appendix) they are represented by one word each.

The frequency of the occurrence of different grammemes in speech It goes without saying that when speaking about grammemes in speech we mean words representing these grammemes. is different. We have analysed several texts containing a total of 6,000 nouns and counted the occurrence of each grammeme. In the table 2 (Appendix) we give the results.

When analysing an opposeme of any category, we regard the grammatical meanings of its members as elementary, indivisible and unchangeable, determined only by the contrast with the opposite meanings. But in speech words are contrasted with other words not paradigmatically, in opposemes, but syntagmatically, in word-combinations. Depending on these combinations, grammatical meanings may vary considerably.

We must also take into consideration that single grammatical meanings may occur in speech only in case a word has but one such meaning. Otherwise all the grammatical meanings of a word go in a bunch characteristic of the grammeme to which the word belongs. So if we want to see the different shades a given grammatical meaning may acquire in speech, we are to analyse in a text the words of different grammemes containing that meaning. If, for instance, the variation of the 'singular' meaning is to be investigated we are to study the grammemes represented by the words boy, boy's, England, England's, book, milk, St. Paul's. We shall call them 'singular' grammemes for short.

The representatives of 'singular' grammemes constitute the bulk of nouns found in an English text (more than 70 per cent of the total number). Following is a brief summary of what a 'singular' noun may denote in speech.

1. One object. The plane struck a seagull. (Daily Worker).

2. A unique object. Shakespeare's name will live forever. (Ib.).

3. A whole class of objects. The English gentleman is dead. (Walpole).

In this sense 'singularity' gets very close to 'plurality'. So close indeed, that sometimes 'singular' and 'plural' nouns are actually interchangeable.

Cf. The polar bear lives in thе North.

Polar bears live in the North.

Here as elsewhere extremes meet.

4. A 'singular' collective noun stands for a group of beings or things viewed as an integrated whole, e. g. peasantry, humanity, mankind.

5. A 'singular' abstract or material noun may show some abstract concept or substance which is not associated with any idea of singularity.

I have accepted with tolerance the established conventions of syntax. (Vallins).

Nouns representing 'plural' grammemes may denote:

1. Two or more homogeneous objects.

Molly was very proud to be able to decide such questions. (Steinbeck).

2. A whole class of objects.

The Hindus and the Muslims liked and trusted him. (Maugham).

Foreigners on the whole were very dangerous people. (Ib).

3. A number of objects similar, though not identical (the plural of approximation).

A woman in her late thirties.

4. Individual objects.

His trousers looked shabby.

5. A mass of some substance.

A lion does not live on leavings. (Maxwell).

6. Boundless extension or repetition. The usage is aimed at producing a stylistic effect.

The snоws of the Polar Region. The waters of the Danube.

Nouns representing 'common case' grammemes express a wide range of meanings, the exhaustive examination of which is hardly feasible. Here are some of them.

1. A doer of an action or the carrier of some property.

The young worker challenged the Prime Minister to go and meet Britain's jobless young people. (Daily Worker).

2. A recipient of some action.

He wanted to employ the axiоims of arithmetic. (Whittaker).

3. The person (or thing) for whom something is done.

He gave M a r у по time to change her mind. (Daily Worker).

4. An instrument. When so used, the 'common case' noun is mostly associated with a preposition,

e. g. to cut with a knife.

5. Circumstances of different events. When so used, the 'common case' noun is mostly introduced by a preposition.

Time: Every Saturday night she bought a joint of meat. (Coppard).

Place: I arrived at P a r k Lane. (Wilde).

Manner: Everything went off without a hitсh. (Hornby), etc.

6. A property or characteristic of some substance.

The house committee was ready to act. (Daily Worker).

7. A person or thing as an object of comparison.

That monster of a dog.

As we have seen, 'possessive case' nouns occur a great deal less frequently than their opposites Some linguists regard the possessive case as a disappearing case (see, for instance, M. Bryant. A Functional English Grammar. Boston, 1945, p. 36). Others (Ch. Barber. Linguistic change in Present-Day English. Edinburgh, 1964, p. 132) speak of "the spreading of the 's-genitive at the expense of the of-genitive"..

The range of meaning of the possessive case is incomparably narrower than that of the common case. Yet linguists point out a number of meanings a 'possessive case' noun may express in speech See Г. Н. Воронцова, op. cit, p. 40..

a) possession, belonging (Peter's bicycle)

b) personal or social relations (Peter's wife)

c) authorship (Peter's poem)

d) origin or source (the sun's rays)

e) kind or species (ladies' hats)

f) the relation of the whole to its part (Peter's hand)

g) subjective relations (Peter's arrival)

h) objective relations (Peter's being sent)

i) characteristic (her mother's care), (rather rare)

j) measure (a night's reflection; a mile's distance).

Sometimes the relations of a 'possessive case' noun are ambiguous. The relation in her daughter's loss may be interpreted either as subjective or as objective. This can be accounted for by the fact that her daughter's loss may be regarded as a transformation (or a transform) of two different sentences.

Her daughter lost == daughter's loss

Her daughter was lost == daughter's loss

In other words, having no voice distinctions, the noun loss may correspond to both the active and the passive voice of the verb.

Since both 'possessive case' and 'common case' nouns may have right-hand connections with other nouns, it is interesting to see the difference between the two combinations in speech. This is what W. N. Francis writes on the subject The Structure of American English. New York, 1958.: "Nouns make up a considerable number (as many as 25 per sent) of the single-word modifiers of nouns

Possessive Noun-adjunct

child's play child psychology

a dog's life the dog days

a day's work the day shift'

my father's house a father image

that woman's doctor that woman doctor

The last pair illustrates vividly the difference in meaning there may be between these two structures of modification. The formal difference between them may be described as follows: a construction with of may be substituted for the possessive construction, and the determiner Article, possessive or demonstrative pronoun, etc. attached to the noun. (if there is one) will then go with the modifying noun; on the other hand, some other kind of construction must be substituted for the noun-adjunct, and the determiner goes with the head noun. In the following illustrations the symbol > means "transforms into"

My father's house > house of my father

that father image > that image like (a) father

that woman's doctor > doctor of that woman

that woman doctor > that doctor who is a woman.

As we see, the relations expressed by a 'possessive case' noun can usually be rendered by its 'common case' opposite preceded by of (the so-called 'of-phrase'). The 'possessive case' noun and the corresponding of-phrase are synonymous, but to a certain extent only.

Unlike the possessive case, the o/-phrase is freely used with all nouns irrespective of their lexical meanings. Its range of meaning is much wider than that of the possessive case. Thus, besides the 'possessive case' relations already mentioned it may show the relations of appraisal (a man of strong will), of material (a table of oak), of composition (a group of children), etc.

The of-phrase is believed to sound more formal than the possessive case. In formal style it is more common than the possessive.

E. g. Head of a girl (in a picture or sculpture exhibition programme), not a girl's head.

In the Russian language a noun in the genitive case may be adnominal and adverbial, i.e. it can be attached to a noun and to a verb.

E.g. дом отца, боюсь грозы.

The possessive case is practically adnominal, as in Tom's departure.

In sentences like The idea is George's, where George's is not followed by a noun, it is sometimes called the 'independent possessive'. But in reality it is not independent, as it refers to some noun, usually mentioned previously (the word idea in the sentence above). Therefore such possessives are called 'anaphorical'. But this term would be misapplied in cases like George's was a brilliant idea, where the noun idea follows the possessive.

Seeing that there is exact parallelism with the use of the so-called absolute possessive pronouns (The idea is mine. Mine was a brilliant idea), we shall call such possessives absolute.

In Modern English there exists a peculiar construction which is a combination of the possessive case and the of-phrase. The construction makes it possible to place an article, a demonstrative pronoun, etc. before the modified noun. Cf. John's friend and a (the, that) friend of John's. The possessive case in the construction is absolute. Cf. a (the, that) friend of yours.

The construction usually has a partitive meaning. A friend of Mary's -- one of Mary's friends. It may also be used for stylistic purposes mostly with ironic colouring. That long nose of John's.

In cases like I dined at my aunt's or a garden party at Brown's the possessive case is really independent. It does not refer to any other noun, and does not correspond to an absolute possessive pronoun. The meaning of the independent possessive is that of locality. It denotes the house, shop, cathedral, place of business, etc. of the person denoted by the noun. E. g. the baker's, draper's, watchmaker's, etc., also St. Paul's .

2.3.2 The use of Articles with Nouns in Some Set Expessions

a) The use of indefinite article with nouns in some set expressions. В.Л. Каушанская и др. Грамматика английского языка (на английском языке). 1973 M. Стр. 36

1. in a hurry -- второпях

Things done in a hurry are done badly.

2. to have a mind to do some thing (a great mind, a good mind) -- иметь желание что-либо сделать, быть склонным что-либо сделать

I have a great mind to have a serious talk with her.

3. to fly into a passion -- прийти в бешенство

If you contradict him, he will fly into a passion.

4. to get in a fury (in a rage) -- прийти и ярость

If you contradict him, he will get in a fury (in a rage).

5. to take a fancy to (chiefly with names of living beings) -- проникнуться симпатией, по чувствовать расположение

I wonder why she took a fancy to the little girl.

6. in a low (loud) voice -- тихо (громко)

Don't speak in a low voice.

7. a great many (with countables) -- много

I have spoken to him a great many times.

8. a great deal (with uncountables) -- много

We can't skate to-day, there is a great deal of snow on the ice.

9. it is a pity --жаль

It is a pity you did not go to the concert last night

10. it is a shame -- стыдно

It is a shame not to know these elementary things.

11. it is a pleasure -- приятно

It is a pleasure to read beautiful poetry.

12. as a result --в результате

As a result of the inhabitants' strenuous efforts the damaged city

Страницы: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5