Noun as a part of speech in English and Ukrainian languages
1. Noun as a part of speech: general characteristics The noun is the most numerous lexico-grammatical class of lexemes. It is but natural that it should be divided into subclasses. From the grammatical point of view most important is the division of nouns into countables and uncountables with regard to the category of number and into declinables and indeclinables with regard to the category of case. All other classifications are semantic rather than grammatical. Thus, in Ukrainian, for example, according to M. Zubkov [7; 159] there are differentiated the following lexico-grammatical classes of nouns in regard to their semantic and morphological characteristics: 1) concrete and abstract nouns (іменники конкретні й абстрактні: ложка, парк – імовірність, кохання); 2) names of living beings and lifeless objects (назви істот і неістот: студент, дочка – технікум, завод); 3) common and proper nouns (власні й загальні назви: Роман, Ірина, Львів, Канада – дівчина, хлопець, місто, держава); 4) material nouns (матеріально-речовинні: фтор, золото, кисень, нафта); 5) collective nouns (збірні: кіннота, огудиння, студентство, листя). According to B. Khaimovich and B. Rogovskaya[24; 52] while dividing nouns into abstract and concrete ones, we usually take into consideration not the properties of words but the properties of the things they denote. The abstract noun smile does not differ from the concrete noun book in its paradigm (smile – smiles, book – books) or its lexico-grammatical combinability (He gave me one of his books (smiles)). Certainly, many abstract nouns (pride, darkness, etc.) are uncountables, but so are many concrete nouns (wool, peasantry, etc.). The group of collective nouns mentioned in many grammars is grammatically not homogeneous. Some collective nouns are countables (government, family, etc.) others are not in English (foliage, peasantry, etc.) If we consider, for example, Ukrainian collective nouns [15; 117] we shall see that unlike English collective nouns they are rather homogeneous since they denote a certain unity of the same or similar objects which are treated as one whole (сукупність однакових або подібних предметів, що сприймаються як одне ціле). Most often these are names of some living beings, plants, etc. They have distinct grammatical meaning in the way that they do not have the plural form since they denote the unity of an amount of objects that cannot be counted. Ukrainian collective nouns are also characterized by gender and word-changing abilities. They can be easily recognized by suffixes they are typically used with: -ство/-цтво (студент ство, пта ство, коза цтво); -н(я) (насін ня, мураш ня); -инн(я)/-овинн(я) (ласт овиння, картопл иння); -от(а) (кінн ота, паруб ота); -еч (а) (стар еча, мал еча), etc. Material nouns are a peculiar group of uncountables, for example: air, iron, sugar, silver. Proper nouns are another, even more peculiar, group of uncountables (though sometimes they form number opposemes, e.g.: Brown – the Browns (in English). In Ukrainian proper nouns are mostly singular though the plural form can also be met, e.g.: два Чернігови. According to Ukrainian grammars a noun is a notional part of speech possessing the meaning of “thingness ” or “substantivity ” (значення предметності) expressed in the forms of gender, number and case [15; 114]. We cannot apply this definition fully to the English noun since, as it is believed by a majority of scholars specializing in the study of the English grammar, there is no category of gender among English noun categories. So let us consider this part of speech in both languages according to five criteria mentioned above. The English noun as a part of speech comprises the following features: 1. The lexico-grammatical meaning of “substantivity”. 2. Typical stem-building morphemes, as in: pacif -ist, work -er, friend -ship, manage -ment, etc. 3. The grammatical categories of number and case. 4. Typical combinability: left-hand connections with articles, prepositions, adjectives, possessive pronouns (also demonstrative pronouns, some indefinite and negative pronouns), other nouns, etc.; right-hand connections with nouns (creating the so called noun clusters), verbs. 5. The typical syntactic function of a subject, an object, a complement or a predicative, less frequently attribute or other parts of the sentence. Let us compare the English noun with its Ukrainian counterpart. The mentioned above five properties for distinguishing parts of speech will serve as the basis for comparison or tertium comparationis. 1. The lexico-grammatical meanings are similar. 2. The variety of lexico-grammatical morphemes is much greater for the Ukrainian noun. The peculiarity of Ukrainian is also the abundance of “subjective appraisal” (diminutive) suffixes, as in дівч атк о, нос ик, син ок, батіж ечок, дівчин оньк а, etc. The number of diminutive only noun-forming suffixes is as many as 53, which goes in no comparison with the English 14 suffixes [10; 149]. The four of English diminutive suffixes are considered to be productive, namely: -y (-ie, -ye) (dadd y, grann ie), -let (book let, stream let), -ette (kitchen ette, launder ette), Completely missing in English but available in Ukrainian are augmentative suffuixes, for example: -ил (вітр ил о, бар ил о), - ищ (вовч ищ е, дуб ищ е), -ук/-юк (камен юк а, змі юк а), -уг/-юг (дід уг а, злод юг а), -ан/-ань (дідуг ан, здоров ань), -яр (мис яр а, нос яр а), etc. [10; 198]. 3.1. The Ukrainian language possesses the category of gender which is absent in English. The category of gender in Ukrainian is a lexico-grammatical one, since not only grammatical features but also the semantic ones (that is a division according to sex, age) are taken into account: дід – баба, син – дочка, качка – каченя. Morphological characteristics are also of importance (suffixes and endings): студент – студентка, робітник – робітниця, etc. The grammatical meaning of the masculine, feminine and neuter gender is determined according to the main index – the ending of the nominative case singular as well as the genitive and the instrumental cases. For nouns of the masculine gender the most typical is zero ending, e.g.: степ, двір, хлопець, but also –а (я), -о, -е endings can be met, e.g.: батько, Микола, суддя, вовчище. Nouns of the feminine gender usually have the endings In both languages we find the categories of number and case. But their opposemes, especially those of the category of case, differ greatly in the two languages: a) a Ukrainian case opposeme contains six (or seven if we take into account the vocative case) members as against the English two-member case opposeme; b) in English the “singular number, common case” grammeme is as a rule not marked. In Ukrainian any grammeme can be marked, e.g.: рука, вікно, etc.; c) the productive number and case morphemes are standard in English (-(e)s and ’s) and non-standard in Ukrainian (столи, стільці, книги; столів, стільців, книг, etc.); d) number and case are sometimes expressed by separate morphemes in English (e.g., oxen’s), while in Ukrainian they are inseparable (книга – книги, книги – книг); e) though in both languages the meaning of case is the relation of nouns to other words in speech, the meaning of the possessive case is in the main narrowed to the relation to other nouns only, which distinguishes this case from other cases both in Ukrainian and in English. Owing to the narrowness of the “possessive case” in English, the “common case” is exceptionally wide. In fact, the extent of its meaning almost equals that of all six cases of Ukrainian nouns. Therefore the necessity of specification by prepositions and, consequently, the enormous importance of prepositions is a characteristic feature of English. One of the prepositional phrases, the of- phrase can practically replace the possessive case. The difference between them is mostly stylistic. There is nothing similar in Ukrainian. 3.2. In both languages nouns can be divided into countables and uncountables, the latter into – singularia tantum (однинні іменники) and pluralia tantum (множинні іменники). In both languages uncountables have an oblique meaning of “number” through the analogy in form and combinability with countables. But in the Ukrainian language there is nearly always correlation between the form and the combinability (ректорат закінчився, дебати розпочалися, though the plural form of Ukrainian singularia tantum is possible in certain cases especially with the stylistic purpose, e.g.: Коло мого двору дві тополі. Коло твого двору дві журби (пісня), which is not the case in English (the cattle are, physics is, family is or are). 3.3. The number of Ukrainian nouns having no case opposites (невідмінювані іменники) is rather small, namely those of foreign origin with endings: -а(-я) (амплуа, Дюма), -у (-ю) (інтерв’ю, какаду), -о (трюмо, лібрето), -е (-є) (ательє, резюме), -і (таксі, леді) [15; 134]. In English the majority of nouns have no case opposites. 3.4. In both languages the functions of different case grammemes are different. In Ukrainian only a nominative case grammene can be the subject, only an accusative case grammeme can be a direct object, only a nominative or an instrumental case grammeme is used as a predicative. In English possessive case grammemes are used almost exclusively as attributes. Common case grammemes fulfil the functions of almost any part of the sentence. 4. Typical combinability of Ukrainian nouns differs from English nouns the way that it is not connected with articles since such a part of speech is absent within the Ukrainian grammatical system. So, the left-hand connections of the Ukrainian noun are the following: prepositions, adjectives, possessive pronouns (also demonstrative pronouns, some indefinite and negative pronouns). Unlike the English noun the Ukrainian noun cannot be combined with other nouns, forming neither left-hand, nor right-hand connections (compare the so called English noun clusters). The right-hand connections of the Ukrainian noun are uniquely with verbs. 5. The typical syntactic functions of Ukrainian noun mainly coincides with those of the English noun, that is: of a subject, an object, a complement or a predicative, adverbial circumstances. The only exception is that the Ukrainian noun is not used as an attribute.
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