Semantic characteristics

THE NOUN

§ 165. The noun denotes thingness in a general sense. Thus nouns name things (book, table), living beings (man, tiger), places (valley, London, England), materials (iron, oil), processes (life, laughter), states (sleep, consciousness), abstract notions (socialism, joy) and qualities (kindness, courage).

Semantic characteristics

§ 166. Semantically all nouns fall into proper nouns and common nouns.

§ 167. Proper nouns are geographical names (New York, the Thames, Asia, the Alps), names of individual (unique) persons (John, Byron, Brown), names of the months and the days of the week (January, Sunday), names of planets (the Moon, the Sun, the Earth), names of ships, hotels, clubs (Shepherd's Hotel), of buildings, streets, parks, bridges (Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Regent Street, Charing Cross Road, Piccadilly Circus, Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Waterloo Bridge), of institutions, organizations, magazines and newspapers (the United Nations, the New Times, the Guardian). They are written with capitals.

§ 168. Common nouns can be classified into nouns denoting objects that can be counted and those that cannot. So there are count and non-count and collective common nouns. The former are inflected for number, whereas the latter are not. Further distinction is into concrete nouns, abstract nouns and nouns of material.

Semantic classification of English nouns is shown in the following scheme:

Concrete nouns semantically fall into three subclasses.

1. Nouns denoting living beings - persons and animals:

boy, girl, dog, cat.

2. Nouns denoting inanimate objects:

table, chair.

3. Collective (собирательные) nouns denoting a group of persons:

family, crowd.

There are some nouns which may be classified both as count and non-count. They often have considerable difference in meaning in the two classes.

Count nouns	Non-count nouns
He used to read an evening paper. She was a beauty. They hoped to have pleasant experiences. I saw him in a group of youths.	They wrappped up the present in brown paper. Beauty is to be admired. He has a great deal of experience. Vie was speaking with the enthusiasm of youth.

A noun of material used as a count noun undergoes a semantic change so as to denote: kind of, type of: He found her drinking Chinese tea, which she didn't like — but what could one do, other teas were common. The same can be seen in the title A. Conan Doyle devised for a story "Upon the Distinction Between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos".

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