Each person uses several hundred nouns in his speech every day. However, not everyone will be able to answer the question of which category this or that word belongs to: proper names or common nouns, and whether there is a difference between them. Meanwhile, not only written literacy depends on this simple knowledge, but also the ability to correctly understand what is read, because often, only by reading a word, you can understand whether it is a name or just the name of a thing.
What is this
Before you figure out which nouns are called proper nouns and which are common nouns, it’s worth remembering what they are.
Nouns are words that answer the questions “What?”, “Who?” and denoting the name of things or persons (“table”, “person”), they change according to declensions, genders, numbers and cases. In addition, words related to this part of speech are proper/common nouns.
Concept about and own
Apart from rare exceptions, all nouns belong to the category of either proper or common nouns.
Common nouns include summarized names of homogeneous things or phenomena that may differ from each other in some ways, but will still be called one word. For example, the noun “toy” is a common noun, although it generalizes the names of different objects: cars, dolls, bears and other things from this group. In Russian, as in most other languages, common nouns are always written with a small letter.
nouns are names of individuals, prominent things, places or persons. For example, the word “doll” is a common noun that names a whole category of toys, but the name of the popular doll brand “Barbie” is a proper noun. All proper names are written with capital letters.
It is worth noting that common nouns, unlike proper nouns, carry a certain lexical meaning. For example, when they say “doll”, it becomes clear that we are talking about a toy, but when they simply call the name “Masha”, outside the context of a common noun, it is not clear who or what it is - a girl, a doll, the name of a brand, a hair salon or a chocolate bar.
Ethnonyms
As mentioned above, nouns can be proper and common nouns. So far, linguists have not yet come to a consensus on the issue of the connection between these two categories. There are two common views on this issue: according to one, there is a clear dividing line between common and proper nouns; according to another, the dividing line between these categories is not absolute due to the frequent transition of nouns from one category to another. Therefore, there are so-called “intermediate” words that do not relate to either proper or common nouns, although they have characteristics of both categories. Such nouns include ethnonyms - words meaning the names of peoples, nationalities, tribes and other similar concepts.
Common nouns: examples and types
The vocabulary of the Russian language contains the most common nouns. All of them are usually divided into four types.
1. Specific - denote objects or phenomena that can be counted (people, birds and animals, flowers). For example: “adult”, “child”, “thrush”, “shark”, “ash”, “violet”. Specific common nouns almost always have a plural and singular form and are combined with quantitative numerals: “an adult - two adults”, “one violet - five violets”.
2. Abstract - denote concepts, feelings, objects that cannot be counted: “love”, “health”, “intelligence”. Most often, this type of common noun is used only in the singular. If, for one reason or another, a noun of this type acquires a plural form (“fear - fears”), it loses its abstract meaning.
3. Real - denote substances that are homogeneous in composition and do not have separate objects: chemical elements (mercury), food (pasta), medicines (citramon) and other similar concepts. Real nouns cannot be counted, but they can be measured (a kilogram of pasta). Words of this type of common noun have only one form of number: either plural or singular: “oxygen” is singular, “cream” is plural.
4. Collective nouns mean a collection of similar objects or persons, as a single, indivisible whole: “brotherhood”, “humanity”. Nouns of this type cannot be counted and are used only in the singular form. However, with them you can use the words “a little”, “several”, “few” and similar ones: a lot of children, a lot of infantry and others.
Proper nouns: examples and types
Depending on the lexical meaning, the following types of proper nouns are distinguished:
1. Anthroponyms - first names, surnames, pseudonyms, nicknames and nicknames of people: Vasilyeva Anastasia,
2. Theonyms - names and titles of deities: Zeus, Buddha.
3. Zoonyms - nicknames and nicknames of animals: the dog Barbos, the cat Marie.
4. All types of toponyms - geographical names, cities (Volgograd), reservoirs (Baikal), streets (Pushkin) and so on.
5. Aeronautonim - the name of various space and aircraft: the Vostok spacecraft, the Mir interorbital station.
6. Names of works of art, literature, cinema, television programs: “Mona Lisa”, “Crime and Punishment”, “Vertical”, “Jumble”.
7. Names of organizations, websites, brands: “Oxford”, “Vkontakte”, “Milavitsa”.
8. Names of holidays and other social events: Christmas, Independence Day.
9. Names of unique natural phenomena: Hurricane Isabel.
10. Names of unique buildings and objects: Rodina cinema, Olimpiysky sports complex.
Transition of proper into common nouns and vice versa
Since language is not something abstract and is constantly influenced by both external and internal factors, words often change their category: proper nouns become common nouns, and common nouns become proper nouns. Examples of this occur quite often. So the natural phenomenon “frost” - from a common noun turned into a proper noun, the surname Moroz. The process of turning common nouns into proper ones is called onymization.
At the same time, the name of the famous German physicist who was the first to discover X-ray radiation, in the colloquial speech of the Russian language, has long turned into the name of the study of something using the “X-ray” radiation he discovered. This process is called appeal, and such words are called eponyms.
How to distinguish
In addition to semantic differences, there are also grammatical ones that allow one to clearly distinguish between proper and common nouns. The Russian language is quite practical in this regard. The category of common nouns, unlike proper nouns, as a rule, has both plural and singular forms: “artist - artists.”
At the same time, another category is almost always used only in the singular: Picasso is the artist’s surname, singular. However, there are exceptions when proper nouns can be used in the plural. Examples of this are names originally used in the plural: the village of Bolshiye Kabany. In this case, these proper nouns are often deprived of the singular: Carpathian mountains.
Sometimes proper names can be used in the plural if they denote different persons or phenomena, but with identical names. For example: There are three Xenias in our class.
How do you spell
If with the writing of common nouns everything is quite simple: they are all written with a small letter, and otherwise you should adhere to the usual rules of the Russian language, then the other category has some nuances that you need to know in order to correctly write proper nouns. Examples of incorrect spelling can often be found not only in the notebooks of careless schoolchildren, but also in the documents of adults and respectable people.
To avoid such mistakes, you should learn a few simple rules:
1. All proper names, without exception, are written with capital letters, especially when it comes to the nicknames of legendary heroes: Richard the Lionheart. If a given name, surname or place name consists of two or more nouns, regardless of whether they are written separately or hyphenated, each of these words must begin with a capital letter. An interesting example is the nickname of the main villain of the Harry Potter epic - the Dark Lord. Afraid to call him by name, the heroes called the evil wizard “He Who Must Not Be Named.” In this case, all 4 words are written in capital letters, since this is the character's nickname.
2. If the name or title contains articles, particles and other auxiliary particles of speech, they are written with a small letter: Albrecht von Graefe, Leonardo da Vinci, but Leonardo DiCaprio. In the second example, the particle “di” is written with a capital letter, since in the original language it is written together with the surname Leonardo DiCaprio. This principle applies to many proper names of foreign origin. In eastern names, the particles “bey”, “zul”, “zade”, “pasha”, and the like indicating social status, regardless of whether they appear in the middle of the word or are written at the end with a small letter. The same principle applies to writing proper names with particles in other languages. German “von”, “zu”, “auf”; Spanish "de" Dutch “van”, “ter”; French “deux”, “du”, “de la”.
3. The particles “San-”, “Saint-”, “Saint-”, “Ben-” located at the beginning of a surname of foreign origin are written with a capital letter and a hyphen (Saint-Gemain); after O, there is always an apostrophe and the next letter is capital (O’Henry). The part “Mc-” should be written as a hyphen, but it is often written together because the spelling is closer to the original: McKinley, but McLain.
Once you understand this rather simple topic (what a noun is, types of nouns and examples), you can once and for all rid yourself of stupid, but rather unpleasant spelling errors and the need to constantly look in the dictionary to check yourself.
MORPHOLOGY is a section of grammar that studies different aspects of a word: its belonging to a certain part of speech, structure, forms of change, ways of expressing grammatical meanings.
PARTS OF SPEECH are lexical and grammatical categories into which words of a language are divided due to the presence of
- semantic feature (some general meaning accompanying the specific lexical meaning of a given word),
- morphological feature (system of grammatical categories specific to a given category of words),
- syntactic feature (features of syntactic functioning).
In the Russian language, there is a distinction between independent and function words.
INDEPENDENT PARTS OF SPEECH
Independent (notional) parts of speech are categories of words that name an object, action, quality, state, etc. or indicate them and which have independent lexical and grammatical meaning and are members of the sentence (main or secondary).
Independent parts of speech include:
- noun,
- adjective,
- numeral,
- pronoun,
- verb,
- adverb.
24. NOUN- this is an independent part of speech that combines words denoting objects and animate beings (the meaning of objectivity) and answering the questions who? What? This meaning is expressed using the independent categories of gender, number, case, animateness and inanimateness. In a sentence, nouns mainly act as subjects and objects, but they can also be other parts of the sentence.
24.1. Classes of nouns: common nouns, concrete nouns, collective nouns.
Depending on their lexico-grammatical features, nouns are divided into:
- common nouns (names of homogeneous objects, actions or states): house, bed
- proper (names of individual objects, isolated from a number of homogeneous ones - first names, surnames, geographical names, etc.): Vanya Petrov, Pluto, Moscow;
- concrete (name specific objects and phenomena from real reality): boy, station and abstract (name an object or sign abstractly from the actor or bearer of the sign): hatred, love, care;
- collective (denote a collection of identical or similar individual objects as one whole): students, sheet.
24.2. Lexical-grammatical categories of nouns:
24.1. The category of animate-inanimate: animate nouns denote living beings (people and animals), and inanimate nouns denote an object in the proper sense of the word, as opposed to living beings. This category is manifested in the declension of nouns, namely in the accusative plural: the accusative plural form of animate nouns coincides with the form of the genitive case, and of inanimate ones with the form of the nominative case. For masculine nouns (except for -a, -я), the same thing happens in the singular.
The masculine gender is a type of category of gender, characterized by a certain form change, and in animate nouns, by the belonging of masculine creatures to it (father, cat, table, house).
The feminine gender is a type of category of gender, characterized by a certain form change, and in animate nouns - by the belonging of feminine creatures to it (mother, cat, bench, terrace).
There are common nouns that can be associated with both masculine and feminine persons: slob, orphan, incognito, protégé.
The neuter gender is a type of category of gender, characterized by a certain form change (partially coincides with the form change of the masculine gender) and the meaning of inanimateness (window, sky, sun);
24.2.3. Category of number: in Russian there is a singular form (denotes one item in a series of homogeneous objects): chair, sock, boy, and a plural form (denotes an indefinite set of homogeneous objects): chairs, socks, boys.
The singular and plural numbers differ in different endings and different compatibility with other parts of speech.
There are nouns that have only a singular form: some abstract nouns (love, care), collective nouns (foliage, students), proper names (Moscow, Siberia), some nouns denoting substance (milk, gold).
There are nouns that, on the contrary, have only a plural form: some abstract nouns (vacations, twilight), some nouns denoting a substance (cabbage soup, cream), the names of some games (chess, hide and seek), some concrete nouns that consist of several components (scissors, trousers);
24.2.4. Case category: this category is based on the opposition of case forms and denotes the relationship of the object designated by the noun to other objects, actions or characteristics. There are six cases in Russian: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional.
24.3. Declension of nouns is the change of nouns by case.
There are three declensions in the Russian language.
| 1 cl. |
2 cl. |
Zskl. |
| Singular: I.p. Mother. uncle |
house, window |
night |
Plural: I.p. moms. uncle |
house, window houses, windows house-am, window-am windows, house, house-ami, windows-ami about the house, about the windows |
nights night night-am nights nights about the nights |
Notes: in masculine and neuter nouns, in which a vowel is written before the case ending and, in an unstressed position in P.p. the ending is written -i; For feminine nouns, this rule applies to D.p. and P.p.
I. p. police, genius, blade
R.p. police, genius, blades
D.p. police, genius, blade
V.p. police, genius, blade
etc. police, genius, blade
P.p. about the police, about the genius, about the blade
For more information about difficult cases of writing the endings of nouns, see the “Spelling” section.
There are differently inflected nouns in the Russian language: these are 10 neuter nouns ending in -mya (flame, burden, time, udder, banner, seed, stirrup, shchemia, tribe, name) - inflected with the increasing suffix -en- in the singular in all cases , except for the instrumental, according to the 3rd declension, and in the instrumental case of the singular - according to the 2nd declension, in the plural they are declined according to the 2nd declension; the words mother, daughter (declined according to the 3rd declension with the increase -er-), path (declined in all cases according to the 3rd declension and only in the instrumental - according to the 2nd), child (this word is now not used in indirect cases singular).
There are also indeclinable nouns (that is, they do not change in case or number). These mainly include words of foreign origin that denote both inanimate objects (cafe, radio) and masculine and feminine persons (attaché, lady); they can also represent animals (kangaroos, chimpanzees), first and last names (Helen Frankenstein), place names (Baku, Helsinki), etc.
24.4. Syntactic functions of nouns
In a sentence, a noun can be; any member:
- subject: Mom goes to the store,
- addition: I asked him to give me the book.
- definition: Mom bought me a notebook with squared paper.
- application: The Volga River is very beautiful.
- circumstance: He achieved his goal despite difficulties.
- predicate: My father is an engineer.
This is the part of speech that names an object and answers questions "who what?". Nouns have a number of features that can be used to classify all nouns by type.
Basic features of a noun.
- Grammatical meaning of a noun- the general meaning of the subject, everything that can be said about this subject: this What ? Or Who ? This part of speech can mean the following:
1) Name of objects and things ( table, ceiling, pillow, spoon);
2) Names of substances ( gold, water, air, sugar);
3) Names of living beings ( dog, person, child, teacher);
4) Names of actions and states ( murder, laughter, sadness, sleep);
5) The name of natural and life phenomena ( rain, wind, war, holiday);
6) Names of signs and abstract properties ( whiteness, freshness, blue).
- Syntactic feature of a noun is the role it occupies in a sentence. Most often, a noun acts as a subject or object. But in some cases, nouns can also act as other members of a sentence.
Mother prepares very tasty borscht (subject).
Borscht is prepared from beets, cabbage, potatoes and others vegetables (addition).
Beetroot is vegetable red, sometimes purple (nominal predicate).
Beet from the garden- the most useful (definition).
Mother- cook knows how to surprise her household at the table, mom- Friend knows how to listen and console (application).
Also, a noun in a sentence can act as appeals:
Mother, I need your help!
- By lexical basis nouns can be of two types:
1. Common nouns- these are words that mean general concepts or name a class of objects: chair, knife, dog, earth.
2. Proper names- these are words meaning single objects, which include names, surnames, names of cities, countries, rivers, mountains (and other geographical names), names of animals, names of books, films, songs, ships, organizations, historical events, and the like: Barsik, Weaver, Titanic, Europe, Sahara and etc.
Features of proper names in Russian:
- Proper names are always written with a capital letter.
- Proper names have only one number form.
- Proper names can consist of one or more words: Alla, Viktor Ivanovich Popov, “Loneliness on the Internet”, Kamensk-Uralsky.
- Titles of books, magazines, ships, films, paintings, etc. written in quotation marks and with a capital letter: “Girl with Peaches”, “Mtsyri”, “Aurora”, “Science and Technology”.
- Proper names can become common nouns, and common nouns can become proper names: Boston - boston (type of dance), truth - newspaper "Pravda".
- By type of designated items nouns are divided into two categories:
1. Animate nouns- those nouns that denote the names of living nature (animals, birds, insects, people, fish). This category of nouns answers the question "Who?": father, puppy, whale, dragonfly.
2. Inanimate nouns- those nouns that relate to real things and answer the question "What?": wall, board, machine gun, ship and etc.
- By value nouns can be divided into four types:
Real- type of noun naming substances: air, dirt, ink, sawdust etc. This type of noun has only one number form - the one we know. If a noun has a singular form, then it cannot have a plural form and vice versa. The number, size, volume of these nouns can be adjusted using cardinal numerals: little, a lot, a little, two tons, cubic meter and etc.
Specific- nouns that name specific units of objects of living or inanimate nature: man, pillar, worm, door. These nouns change in number and combine with numerals.
Collective- these are nouns that generalize many identical objects into one name: many warriors - army, many leaves - foliage etc. This category of nouns can only exist in the singular and cannot be combined with cardinal numerals.
Abstract (abstract)- these are nouns that name abstract concepts that do not exist in the material world: suffering, joy, love, grief, fun.
Nouns have a constant morphological gender marker and belong to masculine, feminine or neuter.
Masculine, feminine and neuter gender include words with the following compatibility:
male new student has arrived-(a,and)
female new student has arrived
medium large window open
Some nouns with the ending -a, denoting characteristics, properties of persons, in I. p. have a double gender characterization depending on the gender of the designated person:
your ignoramus has come,
your ignoramus came.
Such nouns are classified as general gender u.
Nouns only plural(cream, scissors) do not belong to any of the genders, since in the plural the formal differences between nouns of different genders are not expressed (cf.: desks - tables).
Nouns change by numbers and cases. Most nouns have singular and plural forms (city - cities, village - villages).
However, some nouns have or only singular form(eg peasantry, asphalt, combustion),
or just plural form(for example, scissors, railings, everyday life, Luzhniki).
They only have the plural form:
-some real nouns: ink, sawdust, cleaning;
some abstract nouns: name days, elections, attacks, intrigues, beatings;
-some collective nouns: money, finance, wilds;
some proper names: Karakum, Carpathians, novel “Demons”;
-words denoting paired objects, that is, objects consisting of two parts: glasses, trousers, sleds, gates, scissors, pliers;
-some names of time periods: twilight, day, weekdays, holidays.
Note.
For nouns that have only a plural form, gender and declension are not determined.
Features of the formation of plural forms in some nouns.
-Words man and child form the plural forms people and children.
-Words son and godfather -s: sons, godfathers.
-Words mother and daughter in all forms of the singular (except for the nominative and accusative cases) and plural they have a suffix -er: mothers, daughters.
-Words miracle, sky and tree in the plural they take on the suffix -es: miracles, heaven, trees.
Words body and word have obsolete plural forms with this suffix: bodies, words along with regular bodies, words.
-Word eye very
: eyes, eyes, eyes.
-Word ear plural has a stem ush-: ears, ears, ears.
-Word vessel(meaning “ship”) in the plural loses the last phoneme of the root -n: ships, ships, ships.
-Word church when declension in the plural it has a variant with a solid base: churches and churches, about churches and about churches.
In the Russian language, along with the singular and plural, there are the following phenomena of a numerical nature:
-collective number of nouns, agreeing with plural adjectives ( teeth, sons, stakes, knees, leaves, roots against plural. teeth, sons, colas, knees, leaves, roots);
-collective number of nouns, agreeing with adjectives in the singular ( fool, beast against plural fools, animals);
-a plural expressing a set of volumes or types of an uncountable noun ( sands, waters, running)
Case as a morphological feature of nouns
Nouns change by case, that is, they have an inconsistent morphological sign of number.
There are 6 cases in the Russian language: nominative (I. p.), genitive (R. p.), dative (D. p.), accusative (V. p.), instrumental (T. p.), prepositional (P. P.). These case forms are diagnosed in the following contexts:
I.P. Who is this? What?
R.p. no one? what?
D. p. glad to whom? what?
V.p. I see who? What?
Etc. proud of whom? how?
P.P. I'm thinking about whom? how?
The endings of different cases are different depending on which declension the noun belongs to.
Declension of nouns
Changing nouns by case is called declination.
To the 1st declension include nouns husband. and wives kind with ending I. p. unit. numbers -a(-i), including words ending in -i: mom-a, dad-a, earth-ya, lecture-ya (lecture-a). Words with a stem ending in a hard consonant (hard version), a soft consonant (soft version) and with a stem ending in -иj have some differences in endings, for example:
| Case | Singular | ||
| Solid option | Soft option | On - and I | |
| Name | Countries - A | Earth -I | Army -I |
| R.p. | Countries - s | Earth -And | Army -And |
| D.p. | Countries - e | Earth -e | Army -And |
| V.p. | Countries - at | Earth -Yu | Army -Yu |
| etc. | Countries -Ouch (-oh ) | Earth -to her (-yoyu ) | Army -to her (-her ) |
| P.p. | Countries -e | Earth -e | Army -And |
To II declension include nouns husband. genders with zero ending I. p., including words starting with -iy, and nouns m. and cf. gender ending -o(-e), including words starting with -e: table-, genius-, town-o, window-o, pol-e, peni-e (penij-e).
To III declension include nouns female. kind with a zero ending in I. p.: dust-, night-.
| 1st declension | 2nd declension | 3rd declension |
| m.r. with endings -а, -я
For example: Papa Kolya. and. R. with endings -а, -я For example: vase, nanny |
m.r. with a null ending (except for the word “path”)
For example: horse build a table cf. R. with endings -о, -е. For example: cloudsea |
and. R. null-terminated with a soft sign at the end
For example: square , trifle |
Divergent nouns are declined in a special way, and therefore do not belong to any type of declination. These are 10 nouns in -MYA:
Burden time banner tribe stirrup flame name crown udder seed
And also nouns PATH and child. For nouns ending in -MYA in the singular, the suffix -EN- is added in the genitive, dative, instrumental and prepositional cases, and for the noun child - the suffix -YAT-.
CHILD child child child child about child
In Russian there are so-called indeclinable nouns.
Indeclinable nouns include:
1) borrowed, ending in vowels;
For example:avenue, aloe, role, depot, cockatoo, muffler
2) many foreign-language proper names;
For example:Zambezi, Tokyo, Merimee, Zola
3) abbreviations and compound words ending in vowels;
For example:MGIMO, TSO, general store
4) foreign surnames denoting female persons: Smith, Raulf(foreign surnames denoting male persons are declined as second declension nouns);
5) Russian and Ukrainian surnames ending in -О and -ИХ(-ИХ).
For example:Koreiko, Sedykh
They are usually described as words without endings.
Formation of forms should be remembered genitive case plural of some nouns, where the ending may be null or -s.
This includes words calling:
1) paired and composite items: (no) felt boots, boots, stockings, collars, days (but: socks, rails, glasses);
2) some nationalities (in most cases, the stem of the words ends in n and r): (no) English, Bashkirs, Buryats, Georgians, Turkmens, Mordvins, Ossetians, Romanians (but: Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Yakuts);
3) some units of measurement: (five) amperes, watts, volts, arshins, hertz;
4) some vegetables and fruits: (kilogram) apples, raspberries, olives (but: apricots, oranges, bananas, tangerines, tomatoes, tomatoes).
In some cases, plural endings perform a semantic distinguishing function in words. For example: dragon teeth - saw teeth, tree roots - fragrant roots, sheets of paper - tree leaves, scratched knees (knee - “joint”) - complex knees (knee - “dance move”) - trumpet knees (knee - “ joint at the pipe").
Morphological analysis of a noun
I. Part of speech. General meaning. Initial form (nominative singular).
II. Morphological characteristics:
1. Constant features: a) proper or common noun, b) animate or inanimate, c) gender (masculine, feminine, neuter, common), d) declension.
2. Non-constant signs: a) case, b) number.
III. Syntactic role.
Sample morphological analysis of a noun
Two ladies ran up to Luzhin and helped him get up; he began to knock the dust off his coat with his palm (according to V. Nabokov).
I. Ladies- noun;
the initial form is queen.
II. Constant signs: nat., soul., female. genus, I class;
inconsistent signs: plural. number, I. p.
III. The ladies (part of the subject) ran up (who?).
I. (to) Luzhin- noun;
initial form - Luzhin;
II. Constant signs: own, soulful, male. genus, I class;
inconsistent signs: units. number, D. p.;
III. They ran up (to whom?) .underline ( border-bottom: 1px dashed blue; ) to Luzhin (addition).
I. Palm- noun;
initial shape - palm;
II. Constant signs: nav., inanimate., female. genus, I class;
inconsistent signs: units. number, T. p.;
III. He began to knock down (with what?) his palm (addition).
I. Dust- noun;
the initial form is dust;
II. Constant signs: nav., inanimate., female. genus, III class;
inconsistent signs: units. number, V. p.;
III. He began to knock down (what?) dust (addition).
I. Coat- noun;
the initial form is a coat;
II. Constant signs: vernacular, inanimate, cf. gen., undeclined;
inconsistent signs: the number is not determined by the context, R. p.;
III. He began to knock (why?) off his coat (addition).
The noun is one of the main parts of speech in the Russian language. A noun in a sentence can express the subject, object, attribute and circumstance. This part of speech includes everything that surrounds us - people, objects, elements of nature. However, nouns are divided into a large number of forms and have characteristic features. Let's figure out what makes a noun unique in the Russian language, and what you need to know about it for its correct use and spelling.
Main characteristics
So, in order to understand the meaning of this part of speech, let’s consider its main features.
The definition of a noun is as follows:
A noun is a part of speech that answers the questions “who?” So what?". Unlike pronouns, which answer the same questions, nouns always contain some meaning (for example, they denote a person, an object, sometimes an action). Nouns, as a rule, depending on their form, have zero endings or endings consisting of one letter (-a, -i, -o). In phrases and sentences, adjectives, pronouns, and other nouns with a preposition can depend on nouns. Let's look at examples.
Examples of nouns in sentences
And today I jumped up and looked at watch, then I immediately realized that you need to dress like a fire. And I got dressed for one minute forty eight seconds all, as it should, only laces laced in two holes. In general, in school I arrived on time and in Class also managed to rush over give me a sec to Raisa Ivanovna.
However, the greatest interest when studying nouns is their forms, namely: gender, number, declension and case.
Case
Cases of nouns are the basis of Russian grammar. Cases are also characteristic of adjectives, pronouns, ordinal numbers and participles. What cases are distinguished in the Russian language?
Examples of sentences with different cases of nouns
Nominative:
Weather it was stormy and cold; walked wet snow, half with rain.
Genitive:
By asking apologies at the prince's, I began to dress.
Dative:
It was not a reflection of the heat of the soul or the playful imagination: it was a brilliance similar to shine smooth steel, dazzling but cold; his gaze - short, but penetrating and heavy, left an unpleasant impression of an indiscreet question and could have seemed impudent if he had not been so indifferently calm.
Accusative:
Clothes it could well be called rags; his thick black hair was unsmoothed and disheveled.
Instrumental:
All this morning I've been fiddling with mine papers, taking them apart and putting them in order.
Prepositional:
It was a dirty, black and always dark staircase, the kind that usually V capital houses with small apartments.
So, we dealt with cases and got acquainted with the case endings of nouns. Next, we will consider what genders nouns are divided into, and what are the features of such a feature as the number of a noun.
Genus
There are three genders in the Russian language - feminine, masculine and neuter. Each of them corresponds to one of the third person singular pronouns: feminine gender - “she”, masculine gender – “he” and neuter gender – “it”. Examples of nouns:
- Story, hymn, blow, theater, space, child, candlestick - masculine;
- Shelf, head, mouse, Anna, conscience, indulgence, servant - feminine;
- Reflection, knowledge, skill, indifference, sun, plexus - neuter.
Sentences with nouns of different genders:
I'm making my way along fence and suddenly I hear vote; one voice I immediately recognized that it was the rake Azamat, son our owner; the other spoke less often and more quietly.
His leather had some kind of female tenderness; blond hair curly nature, so picturesquely outlined his pale, noble forehead, on which, only after long observation, one could notice traces wrinkles intersecting one another and probably being indicated much more clearly in minutes anger or mental anxiety.
However, these are my own comments, based on mine observations, and I don’t want to force you to believe in them blindly.
Number
In the Russian language, only singular and plural nouns can be distinguished. The first type includes: ceiling, tablet, story, exit, stairs, box, etc. And the second type includes games, students, actions, activities, groups, doubts.
It is worth noting that gender is a constant feature of a noun, and number is not constant. That is, if you put a noun in the plural form, its gender will not change. And the number of a noun can easily change.
Now let's move on to the next part of the Russian grammar - to the declensions of nouns.
Declension
Declension is a characteristic feature, unlike the others, only for nouns. In total, there are three declensions in the Russian language. Let's look at each of them.
- First declension. It includes feminine and masculine nouns with endings -а, -я. For example, Kolya, theory, toy, incompetent, Maria, trumpet, sheet and others.
- Second declension. Includes masculine nouns with zero endings (knife, mole, body, stone, swift, comrade, prisoner) and neuter nouns with endings -о, -е (sun, adventure, wheel, disorder, invention, miracle, abundance) .
- Third declension. It includes feminine nouns with a zero ending, that is, ending in a soft sign(s): notebook, oven, mouse, eternity, night and others.
So, we looked at the declensions of nouns. Now let's understand the various functions of nouns in a sentence.
Functions in a sentence
A noun in a sentence can act as a subject, object, circumstance, attribute, and also be part of a compound nominal predicate. In other words, a noun can be called a universal member of a sentence. Let's take a closer look at its syntactic functions.
- Subject
The subject is the main role of the noun in a sentence. It answers the questions “who?”, “what?”; is used only in the nominative case and performs the action reported in the sentence. Example:
In the newspapers from which the old man first learned prince about the Austerlitz defeat, it was written, as always, very briefly and vaguely, that Russians after brilliant battles they had to retreat and the retreat was carried out in perfect order.
- Addition
The second most important function of a noun in a sentence. In the role of a complement, it is the object of the action (as well as a place, the relation of an object to something, some auxiliary object) and answers questions of indirect cases (everything except the nominative). An example of such a sentence:
When Princess Marya returned from father, the little princess was sitting at work and with that special one expression internal and happily calm glance, typical only for pregnant women women, looked at Princess Marya.
- Circumstance
An adverbial adverbial is a noun with a preposition that denotes a place. However, there is one peculiarity of the noun in the role of adverbial - it is very similar to an object. To correctly determine a member of a sentence, which is a noun with a preposition, you need to make sure that you can ask two questions about it: one case question and one question characteristic of adverbs (circumstances). For example, “I approached the school.”: I approached what?, where? - for school. This means that “to school” is a circumstance in this case. Another example:
These phrases were made in internal laboratories Bilibin, as if deliberately portable, so that insignificant secular people could conveniently remember and carry them from living rooms to living rooms.
- Definition
A noun acts as a modifier when it is a clause. That is, it complements the subject or object and has the same case form. For example:
There was a gentleman sitting in the chaise, not handsome but not of a bad appearance, neither too fat nor too thin; One cannot say that he is old, but not that he is too young.
- Noun in SIS
A compound nominal predicate includes a verb (which can sometimes be omitted) and a nominal part, i.e. noun, adjective, numeral, sometimes pronoun. Examples of sentences with a compound nominal predicate (in the nominal part there is a noun):
However, was big good-natured and sometimes even embroidered on tulle himself.
As soon as we found out that our unprecedented heroes in space call each other Falcon and Berkut, we immediately decided that I would now I will be Berkut, and Mishka - Falcon.
Sometimes a sentence may consist of only one word - a noun (sometimes with dependent words). Such offers are considered nominal. For example, Evening. Pink sunset. Warm air. Quiet sound of waves. Grace.
Lev Uspensky:
The noun is bread of the tongue.
Charles Williams:
The noun controls the adjective, and not vice versa.
Janet Winterson:
Nouns these days are worthless unless they are accompanied by a couple of superlative adjectives.
Victor Pelevin:
A person does not need three pine trees to get lost - two nouns are enough for him.
So, in this article we got acquainted with the definition of a noun - one of the most important parts of speech in the Russian language. Studying the linguistics of one’s native language allows a person to become more deeply acquainted with the culture of his country and the history of his language. Therefore, linguistics is considered an extremely interesting and useful science. Good luck learning the basics!
04/03/2015
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A noun is an independent part of speech. How to recognize it among other parts of speech, how to determine its category, lexical and grammatical categories? How not to make mistakes when writing case endings? There are answers to all these questions. Let's figure it out together.
Noun as part of speech
Nounscombine the names of a wide variety of objects and phenomena, namely:
- names of specific things and objects (textbook, pen, table, coat);
- names of living things (tiger, tit, duty officer, teacher);
- names of various substances (tin, water, oxygen, nitrogen);
- names of various natural phenomena (blizzard, heat, powder, lightning);
- names of various phenomena of social life (anniversary, holiday,wedding, revolution);
- names of abstract properties and signs, actions and states (childhood, purity, blue, old age, joy).
Proper and common nouns
Nouns are divided by meaning .
TO own Nouns are words that name unique objects:
- names, surnames, patronymics of people, (Alexander, Sergeevich, Pushkin), animal names (Zorka, Mukhtar, Bim);
- geographical names (Moscow, Africa, Caucasus, Russia, Don);
- astronomical names (Sun, Mars, Mercury);
- names of newspapers, magazines, works of literature, ships, etc. (“Peasant Woman” (magazine), “Pravda” (newspaper), “White-fronted” (story), etc.)
- names of revolutionary holidays (Great Patriotic War, French Revolution)
TO common noun nouns include words that are generalized names of homogeneous objects (mountains, village, writer, etc.)
Common nouns can turn into proper names: Earth is a planet and earth is land, soil.
Nouns, animate and inanimate
Animated nouns most often name objects of living nature and answer the question Who ? (doctor, cook, parrot, president)
Inanimate nouns serve as names of inanimate objects, objects of the plant world and answer the question What ? (nature, planet, fir, pine, road)
Inanimate nouns include nouns like crowd, flock, people, children, etc.
Gender of nouns
Most nouns refer to one of three kinds:
- To male (house, table, dad, boy);
- To female (mother, grandmother, winter, tablecloth);
- To average (field, grain, window, event)
Some nouns with endings-and Ican refer to both female and male persons (orphan, slob, smart girl, poor thing, fidget), such words are called nounsgeneral kind .
Words that are used only in the plural form have no gender (scissors, vacation).
Number of nouns
Nouns are used in the singular form when they denote one thing ( notebook, clearing, bush), and in the plural form, when denoting several objects ( books, albums, houses, plants).
only singular form:
- names of many identical persons, objects (collective nouns): students, children, youth, teachers;
- name of objects with real value: iron, rye, millet, porcelain, milk;
- name of quality or characteristic: stuffiness, blueness, darkness;
- name of action or state: running around, boredom, reading, swimming;
- proper names as names of individual objects: Moscow, Voronezh, Yenisei;
- words: burden, flame, stirrup, udder.
Some nouns have plural form only:
- Names of composite and paired items: trousers, swings, sleds, watches, tongs;
- Names of materials and their waste, residues: perfumes, yeast, sawdust, cream, sweets, canned food;
- Names of time periods, games: day, weekdays, holidays, tag, chess;
- Names of actions and states of nature: twilight, frost, sunrise, troubles;
- Some geographical names: Alps, Athens, Sokolniki, Carpathians.
Noun cases
There are six cases in Russian. Case is determined by questions.
The nominative case is always used without prepositions.
Initial form noun - nominative case (I.p.) singular.
The remaining cases are called indirect , they can be used with prepositions.
Declension of nouns
Exists three Declension of nouns:
- TO first Declension includes nouns female and male kind with endings - and I(mother, aunt, uncle, young man).
- Co. second Declension includes masculine nouns with a zero ending and neuter nouns with endings -o, -e(d tree, ear, field, lake).
- TO thirdDeclension includes feminine nouns with a soft sign at the end (area, help, daughter).
Neuter nouns in -me (burden, time, stirrup, flame, name, banner, tribe, crown, udder, seed) and a masculine noun path are called divergent.
Unyielding are nouns that have the same form in all cases. For example, the word coat- indeclinable noun: I bought a coat (V.p.), a beautiful coat (I.p.), I dream of a coat (P.p.).
Indeclinable nouns include:
- Many nouns of foreign origin with final vowels -o, -e, -i, -u, -yuand with final shock- a: metro, radio, taxi, kangaroo, menu.
- Foreign language surnames denoting females and ending with a consonant
- Russian and Ukrainian surnames in -about, -them: Karpenko, Sedykh, Dolgikh.
- Compound abbreviated words of alphabetic and mixed nature: Youth Sports School, VDNKh, Gorono.
Most undecided inanimate nouns of foreign origin refer to neuter: new muffler, delicious popsicle. TO masculine - coffee, shampoo, tulle. TO female - kohlrabi, ave.
Unbowed animate nouns of foreign origin refer to feminine, if they denote female persons: madam, lady, miss, to male, if they refer to males or animals: Mister, chimpanzee, cockatoo.