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LECTURE 10
5.3 The noun

5.3.1. Definition and characteristics

Definition : a noun is a word that can be made plural and/or possessive; it occupies the headword
position in the noun phrase; it is usually signalled by a determiner.

- nouns is described as a very large class of words which refer to entities (persons, things,
substances, places and abstractions of various kinds).
- a noun can be the head of a noun phrase and can primarily have the functions of subject or
object of a verbal of a clause.

CHARACTERISTICS:

A .Morphological
- Nouns have inflectional suffixes for plural number: one book, two books;
- Nouns have inflectional suffixes for genitive case: Sarah's book.
- Many nouns are uncountable, and cannot have a plural form: gold, information, etc.
- Nouns quite often contain more than one morpheme:
- compound nouns: bomb + shell, bridge + head, clothes + line
- nouns with derivational suffixes: sing + er, bright + ness, friend + ship
B. Syntactic
- Nouns can occur as the head of a noun phrase: [a new book about the cold war], [the
ugliest person you've ever seen].
- Common nouns such as book and person can be modified by many kinds of words both
before and after them.
- Proper nouns like Sarah rarely have any modifiers.
C. Semantic
- Nouns commonly refer to concrete, physical entities (people, objects, substances, etc.):
e.g. book, friend, iron.
- They can also denote abstract entities, such as qualities and states: e.g. freedom, wish,
friendship.

5.3.2. Noun classes

Most common nouns have both a singular and a plural form, with either regular or irregular
forms. Nouns are subdivided into the following major categories: common nouns contrast with
proper nouns; count nouns contrast with non-count nouns (including mass nouns); concrete
nouns contrast with abstract nouns; collective nouns contrast with noncollective nouns.

Many abstract nouns are derived from verbs (explanation, actor, receiver, etc.) or from
adjectives (wisdom, length, happiness, etc.).

Many words can be recognized as nouns by their suffixes, for example -ion (in action), -er (in
reader), -or (in actor), -ness (in business), -ity (in authority), -ment (in department) and -ship (in
friendship).

Nouns are :
- common (cat, nature, wood, etc.) or proper (Britain, London, Mary, etc.). Proper nouns
are normally uncountable, but if they are turned into common nouns they borrow some
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of the features of the latter. Thus, in The Nadia I know would not say that, the proper
noun Nadia is preceded by the determinative the, and in The Browns are on vacation, the
proper noun takes both the determiner and the plural –s. According to the type of
referent, common nouns can be concrete (nouns refer to people, places, or things) or
- abstract (nouns refer to qualities, states, or actions). In reference to their grammatical
form, common nouns can be count/countable or noncount/uncountable.
- Count nouns have both a singular and a plural form and they can be accompanied by
determiners that refer to distinctions in number, such as a, one, every, etc. for singular
nouns and ten, many, those for plural nouns.
- Non-count nouns refer to an indivisible mass and are treated as singular. They accept
only determiners that do not mark distinctions in number, such as some, much, your,
that, etc. Most abstract nouns are non-count. The definite article the can accompany
both count and non-count nouns, while the indefinite article a/ an can only precede
singular count nouns. Some nouns may be either count or non-count, depending on their
meaning; compare He is good at statistics [noncount] and He produced several good
statistics [count].

The conversion of non-count into count nouns:

1. When the count noun refers to different kinds:
The shop has a large selection of cheeses.
2. When the count noun refers to units that are obvious in the situation.
I’ll have two coffees, please. (= two cups of coffee)

5.4. The verb

5.4.1. Definition and characteristics
A verb is the word class/part of speech which describes an action or occurrence or indicates a state
of being. The verb is the central element of a sentence and its identification is often the most
important step in analysing and understanding the meaning of a sentence.

5.4.2. Verb classes

There are two main classes of verbs:

1. The open class of lexical verbs (also known as main/full verbs - verbs that are not dependent on
other verbs);

2. The closed class of auxiliary verbs(helping verbs). Auxiliaries fall into two subtypes:

- primary auxiliaries (be, have, and do) function both as lexical verbs and as auxiliaries. When used
as auxiliaries, they are function words and have no lexical meaning. They have the same syntactic
forms that full verbs have both when used as auxiliaries and when used as full verbs.

- modal auxiliaries (can, could, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will, and would), although
auxiliaries, have lexical meaning (that is to say, they indicate degrees of obligation, necessity,
probability, etc.).

3. Another class includes semi-modals and catenative verbs.

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5.4.2.1. Lexical verbs

The lexical/main verb is the central element that determines the functional and meaning relations in
a clause. Its valency selects the rest of the elements in the clause.

Lexical verbs have:

- Lexical verbs have different forms signalling tense (present and past), aspect (perfect,
progressive), and voice (active and passive).
- Like nouns, several verbs have no suffixes: call, walk, etc.
- Many of the verbs that do have suffixes are of Latin, Greek or French origin; some of verbs
were already suffixed when they were borrowed: magnify, agonize, realize.
- By the addition of certain suffixes, nouns or adjectives can be turned into main verbs:

Prefix Noun base Derived verb with suffix

-ate Assasin , different Assasinate, differentiate

-(i)fy Beauty, class Beautify, classify

-ize/ -ise Alphabet/ apology Alphabetize, apologise

-en Height Heitghten

Prefix Adjectiv base Derived verb with suffix

-ate Active Activate

-(i)fy Simple Simplify

-ize/ -ise Actual Actualize

-en Black, deep Blacken, deepen

- Verb prefixes do not normally change the word class, yet they do change the meaning:

Prefix Meaning of prefix Examples

Re- again reabsorb, rebuild, redefine,
refinance
Dis- opposite, apart disarm,disconnect, discontinue,
dislike
Over- too much, across, beyond overbook, overcome, overeat,
overhear
Un- opposite, in reverse unbend, uncouple, unfold, unload,
unpack
Mis- wrong, poorly misbehave, mishandle, misinform
Out- beyond, further outdo, outgrow, outperform,
outweigh

 Regular verbs have only four morphological forms. These forms involve three suffixes
added to a base:
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Form example use

Base Walk infinitive, present tense
except 3rd person sg, and
subjunctive
Base+ suffix –(e)s Walks 3rd person sg present tens
Base+ suffix –ing Walking ing-participles (as in
progressive aspect)
Base + suffix –ed Walked simple past tense and ed-
participles/past participle, as
in perfect and passive
constructions)

For most irregular verbs the -s form and the -ing participle can be predicted from the base form. Only
three forms, known as the principal parts of the verb, show irregularities:

 the base form: the verb be has eight forms throughout the present tense; the verbs have, do and
say have irregular -[e]s forms; defective verbs, such as the modal auxiliaries lack most inflection.

 past form

 -ed participle form

 irregular verbs can be grouped into seven classes according to whether or not three features apply
to their principal parts:

−the past and -ed participles are identical;

−the base vowel is the same in the other two principal parts;

− the past and -ed participle have inflectional endings.

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All 3 forms are identical. The past forms also have regular variants: fit, fitted, fitted.

The past and participle are identical, but there is a change from the base vowel and there are no
inflections. A few verbs in this class have regular variants: light, lighted, lighted, as well as light, lit, lit.

The past forms have the same form for the base and the participle. Some verbs also have variants in
which the past and participle are identical: sing, sung, sung, as well as sing, sang, sung.

B. Syntactic

Lexical verbs often occur on their own, as a single-word verb phrase, and function as the central part
of the clause. They can also be preceded by auxiliarie.

C. Semantic

 Lexical verbs denote actions, processes, and states of affairs that happen or exist in time.

Distinguish seven semantic categories:

activity verbs usually refer to a volitional activity that is, an action performed intentionally by an
agent or 'doer'. Activity verbs can be transitive or intransitive, occurring without any object. The most
common, in conversation, fiction, newspaper writing, and academic prose combined, are: bring, buy,
come, follow, get, give, go, leave, make, meet, move ,pay, play, put, run, show, take, try ,use, work.
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 communication verbs are a special subcategory of activity verbs that involve communication
activities, particularly verbs describing speech and writing. The most common 'communication' verbs
in conversation, fiction, newspaper writing, and academic prose combined are: ask, call , claim ,
describe, offer, say , speak , suggest, talk , tell , thank , write.

mental verbs refer to mental states and activities. They do not involve physical action. Some of the
verbs convey volition; others do not. Mental verbs express a wide range of meanings: mental states
or processes think, know emotions, attitudes, or desires love, want perceptions see, taste the
receiving of communication read, hear .

Many mental verbs are relatively dynamic in meaning, such as decide, discover, study, etc. Other
mental verbs are more static in meaning, such as believe, remember, understand, enjoy, fear, hate,
prefer, etc. The most common 'mental' verbs in conversation, fiction, newspaper writing, and
academic prose combined are: believe, consider , expect , feel ,find ,hear, know ,like ,listen , love ,
mean ,need ,read r,emember ,see ,suppose ,think ,understand, want ,wonder.

causative verbs indicate that a person or thing helps to bring about a new state of affairs and often
occur with a derived noun as the direct object, which reports the action that was facilitated. Ex.: Do
you intend to allow its production? The most common causative verbs are: allow, cause, enable,
facilitate, help, let require etc.

 verbs of occurrence report events that occur without an actor. Ex.: The phenomenon occurs
especially at night. The most common verbs of occurrence are especially common, in conversation,
fiction, newspaper writing, and academic prose combined: become, change, develop, die, grow,
happen, occur.

 verbs of existence or relationship report a state of existence or a logical relationship that exists
between entities. Some of the most common existence verbs are copular verbs, such as seem and
appear. Ex.: He seemed worn out and sad. Other verbs in this class report a state of existence (exist,
stay, etc.) or a relationship between entities (contain, include, etc.). Some common
existence/relationship verbs are: appear, contain, exis,t include, indicat,e involve, live, look,
represent, seem, stand , stay.

verbs of aspect characterize the stage of progress of an event or activity. Ex.: She started telling
him her story. The most common aspect verbs are begin, continue, keep, start and stop.

Multi-word verbs
A multi-word verb consists of two or more words which function together like a single verb in
making up meaning. A multi-word verb is usually a combination of a verb and an adverb or a
preposition, but other word classes may also be included.

Such combinations are also called verb idioms, as their meanings cannot normally be predicted from
the meaning of each individual component. For example, the meaning of the prepositional verb to
look after is different from the meanings of both to look and of after.
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Not all the verbs followed by particles are multi-word verbs; often they are free combinations
consisting of a single-word lexical verb followed by an adverb or preposition with a separate meaning
(such as come down, go back). In fact, the same combination can be idiomatic in one context and
non-idiomatic in another.

He looked up the wall. (look and up form a free combination in which the two elements preserve
their own meanings) He looked up the word. (look and up form a phrasal verb meaning ‘to seek
information about someone or something in a book or listing’