Курсовая работа: Comparison of nouns in English and Russian languages
The relative
distribution of the of-phrase and the 's-inflection, as a recurrent feature of
the language, must be given due attention in learning style and usage in
English.
It is
interesting to note, in conclusion, that there is a change going on in
present-day English which runs counter to the general trend towards loss of
inflections, that is the spreading of 's-genitive at the expense of the
of-genitive. Until a few years ago, the genitive with 's was used in modern
times mainly with nouns which could be replaced (in the singular) by the
pronouns he and she, but not with nouns which could be replaced by the pronoun
it: so that people normally said the man's face and the woman's face, but the
face of the clock and the surface of the water. The 's-genitive was used in
certain expressions of time and distance (an hour's time), and could be used with many nouns
replaceable in the singular by it or they (the Government's decision); as is
well known, there was also a number of commonly used phrases where the
's-genitive was used even though the noun was one which could be replaced in
the singular only by it (New Year's Day, the water's edge). In recent years,
however, the 's-genitive has come into common use with nouns which are
replaceable in the singular only by it. Here are a few examples taken from reputable
sources: resorts' weather → the weather of seaside towns; human nature's diversity → the diversity of human
nature; the game's laws → the laws of the game. Many more examples will
be found in books and in newspapers. We cannot fail to see that this tendency
for 's to replace of is a development from the analytic to the synthetic: the
of-phrase is replaced by the 's-inflection.
The relative
distribution of the of-phrase and the 's-genitive as a recurrent feature of the
language, must be given due attention as relevant to synonymy in grammar.
It will be
important to remember that the distinction between living and lifeless things
is not closely observed, and the's-genitive is often used in designations of
things to impart descriptive force and at the same time stress the governing
noun.
A few typical
examples given by G. Curme are:
When I think
of all the sorrow and the barrenness that has been wrought in my life by want
of a few more pounds per annum, I stand aghast at money's significance.
...for the
sake of the mind's peace, one ought not to inquire into such things too
closely.
A book's
chances depend more on its selling qualities than its worth2.
Here is a very
good example from Galsworthy to illustrate the statement:
He had chosen
the furniture himself, and so completely that no subsequent purchase had ever
been able to change the room's atmosphere. [3, p.76]
Associations
with life are certainly strong in personification, e. g.: the ocean's roar or
Truth's greatest victories, etc. Further illustrations taken from reputable
sources are:
resorts'
weather → the weather of seaside
towns
human nature's
diversity →
the diversity
of human nature
the game's
laws → the laws of the game
The spreading
of the 's-genitive in present-day English at the expense of the of-phrase is,
in fact, a development from the analytic to the synthetic which seems to run
counter to the general trends towards the loss of inflections. [5,p. 94]
The synonymic
encounter of the 's-genitive and the of-phrase may be illustrated by examples
with "genitive of possession", "subjective and objective
genitive", but the use of the 's-genitive in Modern English is
comparatively restricted here and the of-phrase is very extensively used in virtually
the same sense:
Soames'
daughter →-
the daughter
of Soames
his sister's
arrival →-
the arrival
of his sister
duty's call → the call of the duty
the children's
education →
the education
of the children
It is to be
noted that in many cases the special meaning of the genitive depends on the
intrinsic meaning of each of the two words connected, and is therefore in each
case readily understood by the hearer. The of-phrase denoting possession is
generally preferred when the noun is modified by a lengthy attributive adjunct
attached to it.
The 's-form is
rarely used as the objective genitive. The of-phrase in this function is fairly
common, e. g.: the sense of beauty, the sense of smell, love of life, the
reading of books, the feeling of safety, a lover of poetry, etc.
The, of-phrase
in Modern English is widely current in various types of structures, denoting:
a) the idea of quantity or part
("partitive genitive"), e. g.: a piece of bread, a lump of sugar, a cake of soap, etc.;
b) material of which a thing is done, e. g.: a dress of silk;
c) position in space or direction, e. g.: south of Moscow, within 10 miles of London;
d) relations of time, e. g.: of an evening, of late,
all of a sudden;
e) attributive relations, e. g.: the
language of a child =a child's language, the voice of a woman =a woman's voice,
etc.;
f) composition or measure, e. g.: a group of children, a herd
of cattle, a flock of birds, a swarm of bees, etc.
There are also
patterns with the of-phrase functioning as the appositive genitive, e. g.: the city of Rome, the
Republic of France, etc.
Alongside with
this appositive construction there is another. The appositive may be placed
after the governing noun, e. g.: Lake Michigan, the River Thames, etc.
Cases are
something that is probably the most complicated concept of the Russian language
to the student that speaks only English. Old English had cases, but in
contemporary English language you can notice cases and declension mostly in
personal pronouns. In English you can see the changes in personal pronoun 'I',
that is changed to 'me', 'my' or 'mine' according to its role in the sentence.
Cases are
exactly that. When a noun has a different role in a sentence, that role is
indicated by a change in the noun. In Russian language there are six cases:
Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Locative and Instrumental. The case
system in Russian does two things. First, it marks the grammatical functions of
nouns which are indicated by word order in English, that is, the subject,
object and indirect object of the sentence. (This means that these nouns are
free to be ordered almost anywhere in the sentence since their function is
clearly indicated by their form.) Second, cases mark certain adverbial
functions such as the time, manner, and means of carrying our an action, which
are marked by prepositions in English, e.g. by hand, on Friday, with enthusiasm
This function leads to the case system being associated with prepositions.
Remember: in Russian all prepositions are associated with a case which is
attached to their objects. Since only nouns can express case, this means that
only nouns may be objects of prepositions. [24]
Every noun in
Russian must be selected for one of six categories when they are used in a
sentence. To indicate which category has been selected by the speaker, the
endings of the noun are changed. This means that each (declinable) noun has up to
six different forms, differing only in the final letter or two on the end.
2.3 The
functions of Nouns in English and in Russian languages
The noun has
certain syntactical characteristics.
The chief
syntactical functions of the noun in the sentence are those of the subject and
the object. But it might be used as an attribute or a predicative.
The sun was
rising in all his splendid beauty. [2, p.32] (subject)
Troy and Yates
followed the tourists. [5, p.59] (object)
He (Bosinney)
was an architect… [3, p.83] (predicative)
Mary brought
in the fruit on a tray and with it a glass bowl, and a blue dish… [5, p.78]
(attribute; the noun glass is used in the common case)
The hero and
heroine, of course, just arrived from his father’s yacht. [5, p.104] (attribute;
the noun father is used in the genitive case)
A noun
preceded by a preposition (a prepositional phrase) may be used as attribute,
prepositional indirect object, and adverbial modifier.
To the left
were clean panes of glass. [1, p.50] (attribute)
Bicket did not
answer, his throat felt too dry. He had heard of the police. [3, p.96] (object)
She went into
the drawing-room and lighted the fire. [2, p.254] (adverbial modifier)
"Stop
everything, Laura!" cried Jose in astonishment.[2, p.261] (adverbial
modifier)
The noun is
generally associated with the article. Because of the comparative scarcity of
morphological distinctions in English in some cases only articles show that the
word is noun.
The noun can
be modified by an adjective, a pronoun, by another noun or by verbals. The categorical functional
properties of the noun are determined by its semantic properties.
The most
characteristic substantive function of the noun is that of the subject in the
sentence, since the referent of the subject is the person or thing immediately
named. The function of the object in the sentence is also typical of the noun
as the substance word. Other syntactic functions, i.e. attributive, adverbial,
and even predicative, although performed by the noun with equal ease, are not
immediately characteristic of its substantive quality as such. It should be
noted that, while performing these non-substantive functions, the noun
essentially differs from the other parts of speech used in similar sentence
positions. This may be clearly shown by transformations shifting the noun from
various non-subject syntactic positions into subject syntactic positions of the
same general semantic value, which is impossible with other parts of speech.
E.g.:
Mary is a
flower-girl.→ the flower-girl (you are speaking of) is Mary. He lives in
Glasgow.→ Glasgow is his place of residence. This happened three years
ago.→ Three years have elapsed since it happened.
Apart from the
cited sentence-part functions, the noun is characterised by some special types
of combinability.
In particular,
typical of the noun is the prepositional combinability with another noun, a
verb, an adjective, an adverb. E.g.: an entrance to the house; to turn round
the corner; red in the face; far from its destination.
The casual
(possessive) combinability characterises the noun alongside of its
prepositional combinability with another noun. E.g.: the speech of the
President — the President's speech;
the cover of the book — the
book's cover.
English nouns
can also easily combine with one another by sheer contact, unmediated by any
special lexemic or morphemic means. In the contact group the noun in
preposition plays the role of a semantic qualifier to the noun in
post-position. E.g.: a cannon ball; a log cabin; a sports event; film
festivals.
The
lexico-grammatical status of such combinations has presented a big problem for
many scholars, who were uncertain as to the linguistic heading under which to
treat them: either as one separate
word, or a word-group. In the history of linguistics the controversy about the
lexico-grammatical status of the constructions in question has received the
half-facetious name "The cannon ball problem". [23]
Taking into
account the results of the comprehensive analysis undertaken in this field by
Soviet linguists, we may define the combination as a specific word-group with
intermediary features. Crucial for this decision is the isolability test (separation
shift of the qualifying noun) which is performed for the contact noun
combinations by an easy, productive type of transformation. Cf.: a cannon ball→
a ball for cannon; the court regulation→ the regulation of the court;
progress report → report about progress; the funds distribution →
the distribution of the funds.
The
corresponding compound nouns (formed from substantive stems), as a rule, cannot
undergo the isolability test with an equal ease. The transformations with the noun
compounds are in fact reduced to sheer explanations of their etymological motivation.
The comparatively closer connection between the stems in compound nouns is
reflected by the spelling (contact or hyphenated presentation). E.g.: fireplace→
place where fire is made; starlight → light coming from stars;
story-teller → teller (writer, composer) of stories; theatre-goer →
a person who goes to (frequents) theatres.
Contact noun
attributes forming a string of several words are very characteristic of
professional language. E.g.: A number of Space Shuttle trajectory optimisation
problems were simulated in the development of the algorithm, including three
ascent problems and a re-entry problem (From a scientific paper on spacecraft).
The accuracy of offshore tanker unloading operations is becoming more important
as the cost of petroleum products increases (From a scientific paper on control
systems).
As a part of
speech, the noun is also characterised by a set of formal features determining
its specific status in the lexical paradigm of nomination. It has its
word-building distinctions, including typical suffixes, compound stem models,
conversion patterns. It discriminates the grammatical categories of gender,
number, case, article determination, which will be analysed below. Subject and the verb in the following
sentence: The poor creature was laming. (Not: The tree was laming.)
The human
selectional base underlies the connection between the nouns in the following
combination: John's love of music (not: the cat's love of music).
The phenomenon
of subclass selection is intensely analysed as part of current linguistic
research work.
Conclusion
We had investigated the similarities and differences of
grammatical categories of noun in English and in Russian languages. And during this analysis
we had found that Russian language as English has two numbers: singular and plural. The meaning of singular and
plural seems to be self-explanatory. As we English plurals end in -s. But in
Russian, there are more endings to make plurals. Some nouns are always singular
as in English. These are nouns that designate substances (oxygen, copper),
products (cheese, fish), a block of objects (furniture), some actions (hunting,
clearing up), feelings (love, health), some vegetables and berries (potato,
carrots).
The case
system in Russian is more developed comparing with English. In English there
are only two cases: common case and genitive case. But in Russian language case
system there
are six cases: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Locative and
Instrumental.
The case
system in Russian does two things. First, it marks the grammatical functions of
nouns which are indicated by word order in English, that is, the subject, object
and indirect object of the sentence. (This means that these nouns are free to
be ordered almost anywhere in the sentence since their function is clearly
indicated by their form.) Second, cases mark certain adverbial functions such
as the time, manner, and means of carrying our an action, which are marked by
prepositions in English, e.g. by hand, on Friday, with enthusiasm This function
leads to the case system being associated with prepositions. Remember: in
Russian all prepositions are associated with a case which is attached to their
objects. Since only nouns can express case, this means that only nouns may be
objects of prepositions.
Conclusion
We had
investigated the noun in our course paper. We had chosen this theme because we were
interested in it and also it is one of the most important part of speech in
teaching grammar not only in English but in other languages too. Nouns play
great role in the person’s speech as it expresses name of things, events, and
phenomenon.
In our course paper
we analyzed nouns as a expressions of social power.
We used various references
to investigate the noun. In
our course work we had investigated
the similarities and differences of grammatical categories of noun in English
and in Russian languages. Russian language as English distinguishes two numbers and the meaning of singular and plural seems
to be self-explanatory.
The classification
of nouns in these two languages is similar; there are two classes: proper nouns
and common nouns, but in English this classification is narrowed (class nouns,
collective noun, nouns of material, abstract nouns).
Cases are
something that is probably the most complicated concept in Russian language to
the student that speaks only English. Old English had cases, but in
contemporary English language you can notice cases and declension mostly in
personal pronouns. The question about category of case in English for nowadays
has discussion character. It depends on approach which author uses in this
problem; to English language was given different numbers of cases. M. Deibchain
assumed understanding of case as combination of preposition with noun in
initial form; he supposed that there are four cases in English language:
nominative, genitive (possessive), dative and accusative. But fundamentally,
this version of the problem of case was represented in wrong way, so far as
case is word form, which has corresponding to case morpheme, as –’s in English.
So we can note from typological characteristics of case category of noun that
all nouns in English are divided into two classes: words denote unanimated
things, which have not the category of case; and words that denote animated
things and time, which have two cases- nominative and possessive. If we
recognize this point of view, it will correspond to the modern system of case;
it means that in fact there is no category of case. In that moment we have new
grammatical category called genitive category, which represented by morpheme -’s.
So the
analysis of this similarities and differences in these two languages will help
teachers to teach grammar by comparing English with their mother tongue
(Russian) or vice versa.
preposition
noun language semantic
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Literary work
1.
Bronte,
E. "Jane Eyre",
2.
Frank
Herbert "Dune"
3.
Galsworthy
"Saga of Forsytes"
4.
Holt
Tom "Who is afraid of Beowulf"
5.
Michael
Judith "A Certain Smile",
6.
Rice
Anna "Savant of bones"
7.
Shakespeare
William, "The remarkable rocket".
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