Among common nouns, concrete and abstract words are distinguished by their lexical meanings and grammatical properties.
Concrete nouns denote things that exist as separate instances or individuals. They may be counted: house (one, two, three... houses), cow (one, two, three... cows), cook (one, two, three... cooks), strike (one, two, three... strikes ). Compatibility with cardinal numerals and variability in numbers ( house - houses, cow - cows, cook - cooks, blow - blows) are the main features of concrete nouns.
Within concrete nouns, a special group is formed by singular nouns (singulatives). They denote one instance of something, isolated from homogeneous objects. Wed: peasant - peasantry, student - students, rag - rags, leaf - foliage. Here singularity is expressed in the opposition of singularities to collective nouns. Unity is also expressed using special suffixes -in(a), -ink(a): straw - straw, pearl - pearl; dew - dewdrop, fluff - fluff, snow - snowflake and etc.
Abstract (abstract) nouns denote abstract concepts - properties, qualities, as well as actions and states: courage, novelty, yellowness, honor, struggle, reading, joy, etc. The semantics of abstract nouns does not allow the idea of counting. They are used only in the singular. Plural forms are formed only in cases where they denote specific manifestations of abstract qualities and actions. Wed: feeling of joy and small joys, joys of life (events that cause joy); the beauty of a girl and the beauty of nature (beautiful places); reading books and pedagogical readings, Vinogradov readings. In concrete meanings, abstract nouns are combined with cardinal numbers, for example: Now we had three worries: the first was to find water, the second was to find fuel and the third was to find protection from the wind (Arsenyev). I know four sweet joys (Bryusov).
In their basic meanings, abstract nouns, as a rule, are not combined with quantitative determiners. However, some of them can be defined using indefinite words ( little joy, a little patience, a lot of attention, did a lot of trouble, said a lot of stupid things and etc.).
Abstract nouns are formed using the suffixes -ost(-is), -k(a), -ot(a), izn(a), -ev(a), -ii(a), -ni], /ni;- , -rel(i), -stv(o), -ism, -atsi(i), etc., for example: endurance, sharpening, darkness, novelty, blue, lowland, disarmament, development, hustle, persistence, formalism, orientation.
To the question What are abstract nouns? given by the author ღ Toryunjaღ the best answer is attracted nouns denote various abstract concepts, qualities, actions, states in abstraction from the bearer of the attribute and the producer of the action: beauty, dexterity, courage, development, enthusiasm, mowing, elasticity, slush, whiteness, cold, warmth.
Grammatical features of abstract nouns
1. They do not form numbers.
Can only be singular or only plural. In other words, these are nouns that do not vary in number.
Units only numbers Plural only numbers
laughter, noise, silence, fear
shine, fight, fuss, run
community, goodness, captivity
elections, holidays
twilight, everyday life
2. They cannot be combined with cardinal numbers.
3. Some abstract nouns can be combined with the words a lot/little and are in the singular form: a lot of attention, a lot of joy, little grief.
Much, much restlessness
It will bring it with it.
(P. P. Ershov)
Derivational suffixes of abstract nouns
1. Abstract nouns formed from adjectives and verbs using zero suffixation.
Adjective → noun
green - greenØ, blue - blueØ
bitter - bitterness
Verb → noun
translate - translationØ, move -
transitionØ, sign - signatureØ
2. Abstract nouns formed using special suffixes.
-awn-
courage, bravery, wisdom
-is-freshness
-stv-
boasting, daring
-ism-
realism, heroism, patriotism
-stj-pleasure [j]e
-from-
kindness, breadth
-outside-
whiteness, curvature, novelty
-enij-
patience [j]e, imagination [j]e
-anij-punishment [j]e, knitting [j]e
-тj-
development [j]e, events [j]e
-atsij-
orientation [j]i, nomination [j]i
Unmotivated nouns make up a small part among abstract ones: sadness, passion, sadness, trouble, comfort, torment, grief, mind.
To denote specific manifestations of abstract qualities, plural forms can be used: cold - winter cold, depth - the depths of the sea, beauty - the beauty of nature, reading - Pushkin readings, joy - the joys of life.
Valgina N. S., Rosenthal D. E. and Fomina M. I. believe that currently there is a tendency for abstract nouns to expand the scope of use of plural forms: agreement, reality, heterogeneity, givenness. This also applies to verbal names with the meaning of action: selling, watering, shooting, throwing out.
Answer from MANECHKA FEVRALEV[newbie]
Nouns used to denote abstract concepts of quality, action and state are called abstract, or abstract (whiteness, mowing, beauty, shooting, development, slush, warmth, enthusiasm, cold, etc.). Grammatically abstract (abstract) nouns are characterized by the fact that their predominant part has only singular forms (brilliance, noise, fuss, silence, community, patience, good, evil, etc.). Only a few of the abstract nouns can be used in the plural when specifying the meaning (joy of life, beauty of nature, murmurs in the heart, etc.). Some abstract nouns have only plural forms (more precisely, they are formalized grammatically as plural nouns): vacations, twilight, etc. Currently, there is a tendency to expand the scope of use of plural forms in abstract nouns (such as reality, givenness, agreement, heterogeneity). The range of words that can take these forms has increased significantly. This partly reflects the desire of language for greater accuracy and specificity of statements. This is especially noticeable in special language (for example, acclimatization of fish). Another group of words that actively take plural forms are verbal names with the meaning of action (watering, throwing, selling, shooting). Common in manufacturing, agricultural and military activities.
Based on meaning and grammatical features, concrete, abstract, real and collective nouns are distinguished. Such a division is not entirely accurate, since both material and collective, together with concrete, are opposed to abstract, primarily in the ability to display materially represented objects, their totality, substances - abstract concepts, properties, states. Therefore, at the first stage of the division, it is logical to contrast concrete and abstract nouns, and at the second, within the concrete ones, to single out the actual concrete, material and collective ones. Let's consider each of the categories.
Actually concrete nouns . Actually concrete ones include nouns that name materially represented objects limited in space (sometimes in time). The core of this group consists of countable nouns. Their grammatical characteristics are the following: the number paradigm of most words ( notebook - notebooks, owner - owners), compatibility with cardinal numbers ( two light bulbs, ten students, ninety-nine pages). The singular number in them, as a rule, denotes one object, the plural - two or more objects. The exception is when such nouns are used in general meanings ( A dog is man's friend). On the periphery of this group are placed nouns that name units of space, time, etc. ( minute, hour, day, meter , kilometer, ampere, kilowatt and so on.).
Real nouns . Real nouns denote substances of homogeneous composition that can be measured, but not counted. They can be divided into parts, each of which has the properties of the whole. These are the names of food and chemical products, minerals, plants, fabrics, waste, medicines, etc. ( soup, oil, gold, silk, cement, millet, oil, cleaning, tea, cream etc.).
Unlike actual concrete nouns, real nouns, as a rule, are used in one number, more often only in the singular ( milk, vodka, copper etc.), less often - only in the plural ( scraps, whitewash etc.). They are not combined with whole cardinal numbers, but since they can be measured, they are combined with nouns that name units of measure and fractional numbers: a glass of tea, a liter of milk, a ton of gasoline, a gram of platinum etc. In this case, material nouns are used in the gender form. p.m. h.; compare: kilogram of raspberries, But: kilogram of peaches; a lot of currants But: a lot of cucumbers.
Real nouns may in some cases have a full number paradigm; plural form h are used in cases where they denote 1) types, varieties, brands: essential oils, Bulgarian tobaccos, Crimean wines, mineral waters, alloy steels, woolen fabrics; 2) large spaces, masses of something: waters of the Dnieper, snows of the Caucasus, ice of the Arctic, sands of the desert etc.
Collective nouns . Collective nouns denote a collection of persons, living beings or objects in the form of a whole, for example: peasantry, students, elder, children, foliage.
From the point of view of morphemic structure, collective nouns are most often represented by words with suffixes -stv-(nobility, bosses, teachers), -is-(merchants, humanity), -from-(poor), -V-(foliage), -hedgehog-(the youth), -ur-(equipment, agents), -Nick-(spruce forest), -j-(crow, rags, officer's), -n-(soldiery, kids), -thief- (kids).
A.A. Reformed and other linguists identify as collective nouns only those nouns that have a triple correlative series of cognates, consisting of singular. h. and pl. including actual concrete nouns and the collective noun formed from them [Reformatsky A.A. Number and grammar // Questions of grammar. – M., 1960. – P. 393–394].
In this case, a semantic correlation is most often maintained, and the meaning of a collective noun additionally includes only the seme of a collection, an association of persons, living beings, objects, for example: peasant - peasants - peasantry. But in some cases semantic increment occurs, for example: dean's office - this is not a set of deans, but a dean and dean’s office employees (deputies, secretaries, etc.).
A number of linguists note that collective nouns, through their formal (word-formative) features, “delimit” classes of people, animals, plants and things, which has historical roots (V.I. Degtyarev, D.I. Rudenko, etc.).
Suffixes - j(o)-, -nya- in words, officers, crows, rags, soldiers, conveying negative characteristics, they seem to destroy the integrity of the units, likening them to a solid mass.
Collective nouns can only convey the evaluation ‘many’: foliage, cherry.
The assessment 'important' is expressed by collective nouns with suffixes - quality: students, officers.
"Names like kids can, without being perceived as neutral, be used with almost equal success in both “positive” and “negative” (however, moderately negative) contexts ( I love kids. Annoying kids were crowding in the yard) [Rudenko D.I. Name in the paradigms of the philosophy of language. – Kharkov: Osnova, 1990. – P. 177–178].
Collective nouns, when used in the form of a single number, are not countable, and therefore cannot have quantitative modifiers expressed as integers.
The view presented above gives a narrow understanding of the term “collective nouns”. In the broad understanding of this term, these include, in addition to those listed, nouns in which collectivity is presented as a meaning that has not received the appropriate grammatical design. Such nouns are not included in the triad series; they may have a numerical paradigm and may be defined by numerals. These include:
1) nouns units. h. (mainly female, less often - male and middle), expressing collectiveness directly by lexical meaning ( crowd, flock, game, shot, rags, greens, evil spirits, dishes, small change, junk, army, detachment, regiment, garbage and so on.). There are no words of the same root that name individual representatives of this group;
2) nouns with a collective meaning, having only the plural form. h.: finance, cereal and so on.;
3) some nouns with a prefix co-: constellation(like a collection of stars), meeting(meaning ‘collection’), inflorescence and so on.
Some linguists do not distinguish collective nouns as a lexico-grammatical category on a par with real, abstract nouns: “...collectivity in the Russian language refers to grammatical phenomena that are not on a par with lexico-morphological groupings of words” [Grammatical categories of modern nouns Russian language: Methodological instructions for second-year students of philological faculties / Compiled by A.A. Kolesnikov. – Odessa, 1982. – P. 24]. Therefore, collecting is considered by A.A. Kolesnikov not as a lexical-morphological category, but as the meaning of a number.
Agreeing with the characteristics of the semantic specificity of these nouns in relation to the category of number, we at the same time see the one-sidedness of this point of view, primarily in the incomplete coverage and consideration of all the features that make up the content of the lexical-semantic category, in the hypertrophied attention to one side of this phenomenon - the method number expressions. Moreover, we see contradictions in this too.
According to this point of view, a characteristic difference between collective forms and lexico-morphological categories of nouns is the inability of collective nouns to be used in the plural form. h. At the same time, among the collective nouns the author names agents, included in the “ternary opposition of paradigms of the grammatical category of number”: agent - agents - agency[WITH. 22–23]. We will add nouns to them dean's office, rector's office, spruce forest and under. The specificity of this group of collective nouns is the possibility of forming plural forms in them. h. ( agents of the two countries, dean's offices of philological and Romano-Germanic faculties).
Thus, the argument in favor of not separating collective nouns into the lexical-semantic category of nouns looks, in our opinion, unconvincing.
Abstract (abstract) nouns . Actually concrete, real and collective nouns are included in one large group of concrete. Ontologically, they all usually designate objects that are represented materially, “physically,” and have extension, that is, limited in space. They are contrasted with abstract nouns.
Abstract nouns denote objectified qualities, properties, actions, for example: joy, creativity, cheapness, vegetation, diligence etc. Most of these nouns are motivated by adjectives and verbs, less often by nouns. Grammatical features of abstract nouns: they are used in the form of only one number (mainly singular); are not determined by numerals (cannot be combined with them).
The exception is the cases of concretization of abstract nouns and the emergence of plural forms. h. in the occasional use of the word; compare: beauty - the beauty of Crimea, joy - small joys.
In addition to the lexico-grammatical categories listed above, some linguists distinguish the category of singular nouns, or singulars (from Lat. singularis– separate). These include: a) proper names, naming objects that exist in one copy or in several, assigned to an individual with naming rights, for example: Simferopol, Yalta, Dnepr, Volga, Andrey, Natalya and etc.; b) common nouns, naming individual objects that are isolated from the aggregate and all together make it up. They have their own singularity suffixes - in-, -ink-: raisin, piece of ice, straw, pearl, speck, grape, speck of dust. As a rule, they are formed from material nouns, less often - from collective nouns (by meaning), have the lexical and grammatical features of specific nouns themselves (limited in space; name specific objects that are counted; have a numerical paradigm; can be defined by numerals) and only in within the category of specific nouns themselves, they can be allocated, taking into account the specifics of the lexical meaning, into a special subgroup.
Some linguists call another category - quality nouns M.F. Lukin lists the following as among them: activist, free spirit, fan, rebel, nobleman, bully, book lover, coquette, moralist, scoffer, paradox, parody, sybarite, cynic, exploiter, sneak, Englishman, German, French, Russian, beauty, clever woman etc. Their lexical feature is recognized as “the predominance of any qualitative features in them.” The full expression of qualitative characteristics can be represented by the form “most (least) + noun”: most moralist, least egoist[Lukin M.F. Morphology of the modern Russian language. – M.: Education, 1973. – P. 27].
In our opinion, the so-called “qualitative nouns” have all the features of actually concrete ones and on this basis should be included in this category, and only in their composition, taking into account the specifics of the lexical meaning, can they be considered as a special subcategory of actually concrete ones.
Thus, nouns, according to the nature of their reflection of objective reality and the presence of certain grammatical features, can be divided into two large groups - concrete and abstract; within the concrete, concrete, material and collective categories are distinguished as independent lexico-grammatical categories.
In language, as in real life, along with clearly opposed phenomena, there are intermediate ones that combine the properties of two adjacent ones. This provision is very important for understanding the lexical and grammatical categories of nouns.
We can single out words that combine some features of two categories:
a) abstract and actually concrete ( idea, thought, hike, journey and under. denote abstract concepts, but at the same time have a numerical paradigm and can be defined by cardinal numerals and ordinal adjectives). This also includes nouns with an occasional (derivational-correlating) plural meaning. hours (type beauty Crimea,joy life,income farmersmells spirits);
b) real and collective (in the lexical meanings of words rags, brushwood and under. materiality and collectivity are combined). Nouns like rags we qualify as collective with elements of materiality (they are included in their own triple series: rag - rags - rags), and nouns like brushwood– as real ones with the added meaning of collectiveness. In the modern Russian language there are many nouns that combine the signs of collectiveness and materiality; their triple series consists of a) a specific noun with the meaning of singularity; b) a specific substantive in the plural form. h.; c) a noun in singular form. h. with the meaning of collectivity and materiality. The latter are usually affix-free, for example:
bead – beads –beads ,
grapes - grapes -grape ,
pea – peas –peas ,
pearl - pearls -pearl ,
egg - eggs -caviar ,
potato – potatoes –potato ,
grain – grains –cereal ,
marmalade – marmalades –marmalade ,
grain of sand – grains of sand –sand ,
fluff - fluff -fluff ,
speck of dust – speck of dust –dust ,
snowflake - snowflakes - sneg ,
straw – straws –straw ,
currants – currants –currant .
They designate matter as a united set consisting of individual objects;
c) actually specific and collective (in the lexical meaning of words crowd, flock, people, regiment, platoon etc. there is a collective meaning, but they have the grammatical characteristics of actual concrete nouns). Apparently, words like furniture, dishes, which denote a collection of objects represented by different names; for example, furniture includes tables, chairs, cabinets, etc., dishes - plates, tureens, forks, spoons, etc.
L.L. Bulanin and L.D. Chesnokov speak about the presence of collective semantics in nouns curls, finances, flakes, thickets, ruins, ruins and under. [Bulanin L.L. Difficult questions of morphology. – M.: Education, 1976. – 208 p.; Chesnokova L.D. Russian language. Difficult cases of morphological analysis. – M.: Higher School, 1991. – P. 30].
Other cases of combining in one word the characteristics of two lexical-semantic categories of nouns simultaneously are also possible. Therefore, when practically considering such examples, one should take into account the presence of these signs and not try to subjectively assign a noun to any one “pure”, non-hybrid category.
Animate and inanimate nouns . The division of nouns in modern Russian into animate and inanimate does not completely coincide with the existing scientific understanding of living and inanimate nature.
Semantically, animate nouns include nouns that name people and animals, living beings; inanimateness characterizes the names of all other objects and phenomena of objective reality. But it is necessary to note the lack of complete parallelism between the biological concept of living (organic) and inanimate (inorganic) - on the one hand, and the linguistic concept of animateness / inanimateness - on the other. Thus, the names of flowers, shrubs, trees and even groups of persons, animals ( crowd, people, regiment, company, group, platoon, flock etc.) do not have the grammatical category of animation and vice versa - nouns like doll, mermaid, queen, jack, king, ace are grammatically animated.
Grammatically, the category of animate/inanimate is expressed in the coincidence or discrepancy of the forms of name, gender. and wine cases units and many more numbers. In the masculine gender, animate nouns have the same wine. and family cases units and many more numbers, for inanimate ones - wines. and them. cases units and many more numbers. For example:
For other genera, animateness/inanimateness should be determined only by plural. number. For inanimate nouns, all three genders coincide with them. and wine cases, among animate ones - wines. and family plural cases numbers.
Some nouns show fluctuations in classifying them as animate or inanimate. This applies to the names of the simplest organisms: microbes, bacteria and others. Vin. n. in some cases may coincide with them, in other cases - with genus. case.
The following forms can be used in the names of microorganisms: studybacteria , viruses , microbes , but combinations are more preferable studybacteria, viruses, microbes .
In the modern Russian language, there are also fluctuations in the use of wine forms. case of nouns face, personality, character and some others.
Nouns that name animate objects, when used to designate inanimate objects, can retain morphological signs of animation: run papersnake , shoot downreconnaissance bomber , dancehopaka . And vice versa: some of the polysemic words, usually used as inanimate, in one of the meanings can be used as animate; compare: In the corner of the barn laymattress stuffed with hay. You have never met such a lout in your life,mattress ?
Words act as grammatically animate in one of the meanings when referring to a specific person idol, idol, blockhead, spirit, type, graven image, block of wood and under.
Mostly nouns husband are animate. and wives kind. Animate neuter nouns are represented by words child, creature, face, monster, monster, monster, animal, insect, mammal and under. Names of celestial bodies ( Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) are inflected like inanimate nouns.
Some nouns can be classified as animate based on formal features, for example, the presence of the person suffix - tel-. A.A. drew attention to this. Shakhmatov: “The category of animation is also associated with the suffix - tel; this depends on the fact that this suffix actually forms the names of masculine characters” [Shakhmatov A.A. Syntax of the Russian language. – L., 1941. – P. 446].
On the issue of distinguishing between animate and inanimate nouns in the linguistic literature, there is another point of view, according to which, in addition to those listed above, nouns that do not have the same name are also classified as animate. and family cases in units and many more number, although these words denote persons, living beings, for example: regiment, people, flock, students etc. Considering that grammar studies the lexico-grammatical, and not the lexical category of animation, that is, a category that has material expression in certain grammatical forms, the first point of view should be accepted.
Most modern linguists believe that all nouns are divided into animate and inanimate. However, there is another, clarifying point of view (A.N. Gvozdev, E.M. Galkina-Fedoruk): only concrete nouns themselves can be divided into animate and inanimate; abstract always refers to inanimate.
The meaning of animate/inanimate is nominative, since it is based on an assessment of the facts of the objective world and takes into account the living and inanimate world of nature. However, there is no complete correspondence here.
The meaning of animate/inanimate is classificatory, constant, present in a word in any of its forms; Animation / inanimateness is regularly expressed syntactically (by the coincidence of the vin. case with the gender or im.; the corresponding forms of compatible adjectives, participles, pronouns, numerals).
For indeclinable nouns, the syntactic expression of animate/inanimate is the only one. Nouns pluralia tantum are classified as inanimate: cream, day, gate, trousers, holidays.
Many phenomena associated with the grammatical category of animateness/inanimateness are explained by the fact that this category took shape in the Russian language in the 16th century, first in the singular. h., then - in plural. h., and before that, in the Old Russian language, the norm was the coincidence of wines. case with it.. The category of animacy first covered personal and proper names, then expanded to nouns naming animals. A relic associated with the period when the category of animation was not yet formalized grammatically are constructions like to become a public figure, to be promoted to officer, to be elected to deputies[Kretova T.N., Sobinnikova V.I. Historical commentary on phonetics and grammar of the Russian language. – Voronezh, 1987. – P. 52–53].
Our observations of the results presented by informants, whose role was played by teachers and students of the philological and natural faculties of the Tauride National University and teachers of Russian studies in Crimean schools, confirm the idea of expanding the lexical and grammatical category of animation in modern Russian.