NOUNS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

1. List the ways how are nouns formed in English language.

3 main ways:

- Conversion: words of other classes are converted into nouns: ups and downs; the have

- Composition: words are formed by adding 2 or more roots or free morpheme together: note-book

- Derivation: words are formed by adding affixes (either suffixes or prefixes or both) to some roots: unhappiness, uncarelessness

2. What is zero derivation?

Conversion (zero derivation) is the formation of a new word class without adding any affixes: hand---to hand; poor - the poor...

3. How is the gender expressed in English language?

The grammatical category of gender is not found in English nouns. Most nouns have the same form for masculine and feminine (parents, child. Teacher, singer...). However, in some cases, the indications of gender are expressed by means of:

- Two different words: boy - girl, man - woman, husband - wife...

- Morphemes of combination: actor - actress, manservant - maidservant, lion - lioness...

4. How are borrowed nouns in English language used in their plural form?

In English, there are 3 main ways to make plural form of the borrowed nouns:

- Retaining their original plural form.

Eg: datum - data; phenomenon - phenomena

- Applying the rule of forming plural nouns in English.

Eg: formula - fomulas; index - indexes

- Using both the foreign and the English plural forms.

Eg: memorandum - morandums - memoranda; index - indexes - indice

5. How are the English compound nouns inflected for plural?

Compound nouns, general speaking, the final element is changing to plural

- By taking "s/es".

Eg: teacher - teachers, housewife - housewives...

- By adding "s" to the noun stem.

Eg: mother-in-law → mothers-in-law

- In compounds having "man" and "woman" as the first stem, the plural form appears in both.

Eg: woman-teacher → women-teachers, man-servant → men-servants...

6. Can the plural form change the lexical meaning of singular noun in English language? Give 5 examples.

The plural form can change the lexical meaning of singular noun in English.

Eg:

- Damage: loss or harm resulting from injury.

→ Damages: some of money to be paid as compensation.

- Pain: physical disorder, sensation caused by injury.

→ Pains: labour pain, great effort.

- Custom: established socially accepted practice

→ Customs: the agency for collecting tax, duty.

- Good: something is good.

→ Goods: merchandise.

- Drawer: a sliding box opened by pulling.

→ Drawers: undergarment for the lower body.

7. State the function of noun phrase.

The noun phrase can be used with such function as:

- Subject: Those senior students study hard for their final exams.

- Complement: They are students of English department.

- Object: She wrote a long letter to her mother on the Mother's Day.

- Attribute: That five year old girl is my daughter.

- Part of adverbial modifier: They are working in the rice field