Курсовая работа: Comparison of nouns in English and Russian languages

Concrete nouns refer to definite objects—objects in which you use at least one of your senses. For instance, "chair", "apple", or "Janet". Abstract nouns on the other hand refer to ideas or concepts, such as "justice" or "hate". While this distinction is sometimes useful, the boundary between the two of them is not always clear. In English, many abstract nouns are formed by adding noun-forming suffixes ("-ness", "-ity", "-tion") to adjectives or verbs. Examples are "happiness", "circulation" and "serenity".

1.2 Morphological characteristics of the Nouns

The noun has the following morphological characteristics:

1. Nouns that can be counted have two numbers: singular and plural (e.g. singular: a girl, plural: girls).

2. Nouns denoting living being (and some nouns denoting lifeless things) have two case forms: the common case and the genitive case.

It is doubtful whether grammatical category of gender exists in Modern English for it is hardly ever expressed by means of grammatical forms.

There is practically only one gender-forming suffix in Modern English, the suffix -es, expressing feminine gender. It is not widely used.

heir- heir-ess

poet- poet-ess

actor- actor-ess

waiter- waitr-ess

host- host-ess

lion- lion-ess

tiger- tigr-ess

Gender, i.e. the distinction of nouns into masculine, feminine and neuter, may be expressed lexically by means of different words or word-compounds:

father- mother man- woman

boy- girl gentleman- lady

husband- wife cock-sparrow- hen-sparrow

boy-friend- girl-friend man-servant- maid-servant

"She is heiress to the throne." [4, p.110]

"Is there a parson, much bemused in beer,

A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,

A clerk, foredoomed his father’s soul to cross,

Who pen’s a stanza, when he should engross?" [2, p.385]

"A living cat is better than a dead lioness". [2, p.230]

"Saint George, that swinged the dragon, and e’er since

Sits on his horse back at mine hostess’ door." [5, p.447]

In linguistics, grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. As an example, consider the English sentences below:

That apple on the table is fresh.