Comparison of nouns in English and Russian languages

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

Bibliography

1. Beard, R. (1992). Number. In W. Bright (ed.) International Encyclopedia of

2. Corbett, G. (2000). Number. Cambridge University Press.

3. Deutschbein. M. System der neuenglischen Syntax, 1928; G. Сurme. A Grammar of the English Language. London-New York, 1931.

4. Francis. W. N. The Structure of American English. New York, 1958, p. 234; see also: R. Quіrk. The Use of English. London, 1964, p. 74.

5. Fries. Ch. The Structure of English. An Introduction to the Construction of English Sentences. London, 1963, pp. 62-63, pp. 94--100.

6. Illyish B. The structure of Modern English M.- L. 1965

7. Laycock, Henry. (2005) 'Mass nouns, Count nouns and Non-count nouns' Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier.

8. Laycock, Henry. (2006) Words without Objects. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jespersen. Essentials of English Grammar. London, 1933.

9. Other advanced books and detailed studies on this specialised topic are: В. М. Жирмунский. Об аналитических конструкциях. В сб.: "Аналитические конструкции в языках различных типов". М.-- Л.. 1965;

10. Rayevska N.M. (1976) Modern English Grammar, Kiev, pp.67-72.

11. Sweet. H. A New English Grammar. Oxford, 1955.

12. Vinokurova, Nadezhda. 2005. Lexical categories and argument structure : a study with reference to Sakha.] Ph.D. diss. University of Utrecht.

13. William. Croft,1993. "A noun is a noun is a noun - or is it? Some reflections on the universality of semantics." Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, ed. Joshua S. Guenter, Barbara A. Kaiser and Cheryl C. Zoll,. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

14. Блох. М. Я. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. М., 1983; стр

15. В. Н. Жигадло, И. П. Иванова, Л. Л. Иофик. Современный английский язык. М., 1956,

16. Иванова, Л. Л. Иофик. Современный английский язык. М.-- Л., 1956;

17. О. Jespersen. A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. London-Copenhagen, 1965;

18. Смирницкий.И. Лексикология английского языка. М., 1956;

19. Щepба. Л. В. О частях речи в русском языке. В сб.: "Русская речь", 1928, р. 6;

20. Ярцева. Проблема парадигмы в языке аналитического строя. В сб.: "Вопросы германского языкознания". M.-- Л., 1961, p. 229;

21. Ярцева. B. H. Историческая морфология английского языка. M.-- Л., 1960;

22. Ярцева В. H.. Исторический синтаксис английского языка. М.-- Л., 1961;

23. www. answers.com/topic/agreement -linguistics

24. www.alpha.com /rusgrammar/time.

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".

8. Tolkien J.R.R. "The return of thinking"

9. Брюсов , Сочинение в двух томах. Том 1

10. Лермонтов "Русская литература"

11. Пушкин А.С. Сочинение в трех томах. Том 2

12. Тютчев "Изучение лирики в школе"

13. Фет "Русская литература"

Appendix

Oppositional relations between different parts of speech may be thus shown as follows:

Collective Nouns, Company Names, Family Names, Sports Teams

There are, further, so called collective nouns, which are singular when we think of them as groups and plural when we think of the individuals acting within the whole (which happens sometimes, but not often).

Nouns that can be Countable and Uncountable

Sometimes, the same noun can be countable and uncountable, often with a change of meaning.

Uncountable Nouns

Uncountable nouns are substances, concepts etc that we cannot divide into separate elements. We cannot "count" them. For example, we cannot count "milk". We can count "bottles of milk" or "litres of milk", but we cannot count "milk" itself. Here are some more uncountable nouns:

Countable Nouns

Countable nouns are easy to recognize. They are things that we can count. For example: "pen". We can count pens. We can have one, two, three or more pens. Here are some more countable nouns:

Number

English plurals end in -s. In Russian, there are more endings to make plurals. They are all summed up in the table:

There are some plurals which have been borrowed from foreign nouns:

Modality plays a great role in the person's speech, as it expresses speaker's attitudes to actions of other people. In our diploma paper we analyzed modality as expressions of social power, morphological and semantic features of modal verbs as they express modality.

We have proposed to view the core meanings of the modal verbs as determined by the power structure of the speech act situation where they are used. We have found that the different participants' expectations about each other's attitudes combined with the social power structure largely determine the usage, and there by the semantics of modals. Our general semantic approach should, however, be applicable to all languages with modal verbs.

Modal verbs take a special place in grammar, but they are also examined by semantic science. That's why disagreement appeared between grammar and semantic sciences. Now modal verbs are the subject of grammar, which consider not only the structural characteristics, but also studies semantic loading of modal verbs.

The category of modal verbs include request, order, imperative, command, approval, disapproval, reproach, an opportunity, skill, a duty, a prediction, the assumption and etc.

In our diploma paper we also analyzed semantic features of modal verbs. We have found out that modal verbs are concerned defective as many modal verbs have no form of future time, they have the equivalents among nominal verbs. In this connection, equivalents of modal verbs in our work have involved in the separate semantic analysis.

Drawing conclusion of our work, we can tell, that each modal verb and its equivalents have several values. These values frequently coincide with values of other modal verbs, but have the own special characteristic, each of characteristics proves to be true from examples in colloquial and literary speech.

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