Grammatical categories of webster

Grammatical categories of webster.

Contents
1. What is Noun?

2. Semantical Characteristics of English Nouns
3. The Category of Case
4. The Category of Number of English Nouns

The theme of my course paper sounds as following: «English Nouns and Their Grammatical Categories». Before beginning of investigation in our theme, I would like to say some words dealt with the theme of my course paper.The noun is a word expressing substance in the widest sense of the word. In the concept of substance we include not only names of living beings (e.g. boy, girl, bird) and lifeless things (e.g. table, chair, book), but also names of abstract notions, i.e. qualities, slates, actions (kindness, strength, sleep, fear, conversation, fight), abstracted from their bearers. In speech these types of nouns are treated in different ways, so one, who does not know ways of treatment, can make mistakes in his speech.Standing on such ground, I would like to point out tasks and aims of my work

1. The first task of my work is to give definition to term «Noun».
2. Second task is to describe main features of English nouns.
3. And the last task is to describe grammatical categories that nouns possesses.In our opinion the practical significance of our work is hard to be overvalued. This work reflects modern trends in linguistics and we hope it would serve as a good manual for those who wants to master modern English language.The present work might find a good way of implying in the following spheres:1. In High Schools and scientific circles of linguistic kind it can be successfully used by teachers and philologists as modern material for writing research works dealing with English nouns. 2. It can be used by teachers of schools, lyceums and colleges by teachers of English as a practical manual for teaching English grammar.
3. It can be useful for everyone who wants to enlarge his/her knowledge in English.
The present course paper consists of four parts: introduction, the main part, conclusion and bibliography. Within the introduction part, which includes two items we gave the brief description of our qualification work (the first item) and gave general notion of the word «noun». The main part of our qualification work includes several items. There we discussed such problems as definition of nouns, main features of English nouns, their grammatical categories. In the conclusion to our qualification work we tried to draw some results from the scientific investigations made within the main part of our qualification work. In bibliography part we mentioned more than 20 sources of which were used while compiling the present work. It includes linguistic books and articles dealing with the theme, a number of used dictionaries and encyclopedias and also some internet sources.
1. What is Noun?
The word «noun» comes from the Latin nomen meaning «name». Word classes like nouns were first described by Sanskrit grammarian Panini and ancient Greeks like Dionysius Thorax, and defined in terms of their morphological properties. For example, in Ancient Greece, nouns can be inflected for grammatical case, such as dative or accusative. Verbs, on the other hand, can be inflected for tenses, such as past, present or future, while nouns cannot. Aristotle also had a notion of onomata (nouns) and rhemata (verbs) which, however, does not exactly correspond our notions of verbs and nouns. In her dissertation, Vinokurova has a more detailed discussion of the historical origin of the notion of a noun.Noun and its grammatical categoriesExpressions of natural language will have properties at different levels. They have formal properties, like what kinds of morphological prefixes or suffixes they can take, and what kinds of other expressions they can combine with. but they also have semantic properties, i.e. properties pertaining to their meaning. The definition of nouns on the top of this page is thus a formal definition. That definition is uncontroversial, and has the advantage that it allows us to effectively distinguish nouns from non-nouns. However, it has the disadvandage that it does not apply to nouns in all languages. For example in Russian, there are no definite articles, so one cannot define nouns by means of those. There are also several attempts of defining nouns in terms of their semantic properties. Many of these are controversial, but some are discussed below.In traditional school grammars, one often encounters the definition of nouns that they are all and only those expressions that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, or idea, etc. This is a semantic definition. It has been criticized by contemporary linguists as being quite uninformative. Part of the problem is that the definition makes use of relatively general nouns («thing», «phenomenon», «event») to define what nouns are. The existence of such general nouns shows us that nouns are organized in taxonomic hierarchies. But other kinds of expressions are also organized in hierarchies. For example all of the verbs «stroll», «saunter,» «stride,» and «tread» are more specific words than the more general «walk.» The latter is more specific than the verb «move»/ But it is unlikely that such hierarchies can be used to define nouns and verbs. Furthermore, an influential theory has it that verbs like «kill» or «die» refer to events, and so they fall under the definition. Similarly, adjectives like «yellow» or «difficult» might be thought to refer to qualities, and adverbs like «outside» or «upstairs» seem to refer to places. Worse still, a trip into the woods can be referred to by the verbs «stroll» or «walk»/ But verbs, adjectives and adverbs are not nouns, and nouns aren't verbs. So the definition is not particularly helpful in distinguishing nouns from other parts of speech.Another semantic definition of nouns is that they are prototypically referential. That definition is also not very helpful in distinguishing actual nouns from verbs. But it may still correctly identify a core property of nounhood. For example, we will tend to use nouns like «fool» and «car» when we wish to refer to fools and cars, respectively. The notion that this is prototypical reflects the fact that such nouns can be used, even though nothing with the corresponding property is referred to:
John is no fool.
If I had a car, I'd go to Marrakech.The first sentence above doesn't refer to any fools, nor does the second one refer to any particular car.
In most cases in treating English nouns we shall keep to the conception of scientists that we refer to post-structural tendency It's because they combine the ideas of traditional and structural grammarians. The noun is classified into a separate word – group because:
1. they all have the same lexical – grammatical meaning:substance / thing
2. according to their form – they've two grammatical categories:number and case
3. they all have typical stem-building elements:– er, – ist, – ship, – ment, – hood….
4. typical combinability with other words:most often left-hand combinability.
5. function – the most characteristic feature of nouns is – they can be observed in all syntactic functions but predicate.From the grammatical point of view most important is the division of nouns into countable and un-countable with regard to the category of number and into declinable and indeclinable with regard to the category of case1.
2. Semantical Characteristics of English Nouns
Nouns fall under two classes: (A) proper nouns; (B) common nouns2.
nouns are individual, names given to separate persons or things. As regards their meaning proper nouns may be personal names (Mary, Peter, Shakespeare), geographical names (Moscow, London, the Caucasus), the names of the months and of the days of the week (February, Monday), names of ships, hotels, clubs, etc.
3. The Category of Case
The category of case of nouns is the system of opposites (such as girl–girl's in English, дом – дома – дому – дом – домом – (о) доме in Russian) showing the relations of the noun to other words in speech. Case relations reflect the relations of the substances the nouns name to other substances, actions, states, etc. in the world of reality 3. In the sentence ‘I took John's hat by mistake’ the case of the noun ‘John's’ shows its relation to the noun hat, which is some reflection of the relations between John and his hat in reality.
Case is one of those categories which show the close connection:
(a) between language and speech,
(b) between morphology and syntax.
(a) A case opposite is, like any other opposite, a unit of the language system, but the essential difference between the members of a case opposite is in their combinability in speech. This is particularly clear in a language like Russian with a developed case system. Compare, for instance, the combinability of the nominative case and that of the oblique cases. See also the difference in the combinability of each oblique case: We can see here that the difference between the cases is not so much a matter of meaning as a matter of combinability. It can be said that поступок – поступка – поступку, etc. are united paradigmatically in the Russian language on the basis of their syntagmatic differences in speech. Similarly, the members of the case opposite John – John's are united paradigmatically on the basis of their syntagmatic differences.Naturally, both members of an English noun case opposite have the features of English nouns, including their combinability. Thus, they may be preceded by an article, an adjective, a numeral, a pronoun, etc.
a student…. a student's…
the student…, the student's…
a good student…, a good student's…
his brother…, his brother's…
the two brothers…, the two brothers'…
Yet, the common case grammemes are used in a variety of combinations where the possessive case grammemes do not, as a rule, occur. In the following examples, for instance, John's or boys' can hardly be substituted for John or boys: John saw the boys, The boys were seen by John, It was owing to the boys that…, The boys and he…, etc.(b) Though case is a morphological category it has a distinct syntactical significance. The common case grammemes fulfil a number of .The category DEFINITENESS distinguishes definite and indefinite nouns. This grammatical category is typically associated to nouns through the use of determiners. A determiner is a word that determines the kind of reference a noun or noun phrase has, for example a, an, the, every, some. It distinguishes between referents/entities that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and entities which are not (indefinite noun phrases). There is considerable variation in the expression of definiteness across languages and some languages do not express it at all.
For example, in English definiteness is usually marked by the selection of determiner. Certain determiners, such as a, an, many, any, either, and some typically mark a noun phrase as indefinite. Others, including the, this, every, and both mark the noun phrase as definite.
Some African languages have a property of definiteness within the noun prefix that has a relation function. Determiners, quantifiers, genitives and adjectives all have this relation function in a concatenation of modifiers of the Noun. They all dependent on the noun head, indicating this relationship through some part of the noun prefix which is referred to as the agreement element.
Do you hate bad grammar? You very likely do, or at least think that you do, and few people are so bold as to claim that they love such a thing. Finding complaints about the real or imagined misuse of language is an easy thing to do. But when we begin to look at complaints about (or simply comments regarding) the subject of bad grammar a peculiar thing happens: it’s not so clear whether the thing being complained about is actually grammar, or if it is perhaps usage. What’s the difference?grammar or usage
Photo: Illustration from Walter Crane's "Grammar in Rhyme," circa 1868
'Grammar' refers to the syntax, inflections, and structure of a language, whereas complaints about the misuse of the word 'irony' would fall into the category of 'usage'.
Some people think they're better than you because they say "better than I" instead of "better than me."They're not, of course. They're just among the select group of grammar enthusiasts who think that than can only be a conjunction. You, on the hand, recognize that it can also be a preposition.That's right: whether you say "better than me," "taller than I," or "more annoying than they" has to do with grammatical categories that we typically only consider when a teacher asks us to. Of course, we in fact rely on these categories for all of our language-based communication, whether we do so consciously or not.Than has been a conjunction since before the 12th century. A conjunction, if you will remember (no judgment here if you don't), is a word that joins together other words or groups of words. In particular, than has been and continues to be a subordinating conjunction. That means that it introduces a subordinate clause, which is a clause (aka, a group of words that includes both a subject and predicate) that does not form a simple sentence by itself. As a subordinating conjunction, than joins a subordinate clause to a main clause, which is a clause that can be used as a simple sentence by itself. Here is an example of the subordinating conjunction than doing what it does:The cat is more determined than I am to sleep through the cacophony."The cat is more determined" is a main clause because it contains a subject and a verb, and it can function as a standalone sentence; "than I am to sleep through the cacophony" is a subordinate clause because it contains a subject and a verb but can't function as a standalone sentence.We can modify our example to something much simpler that still demonstrates than as a subordinating conjunction:The cat is more determined than I am.The main clause is unchanged, but the subordinate clause is the much more succinct "than I am."And we can modify it still further too:The cat is more determined than I Again the main clause is unchanged, but the subordinate clause is shrunk to almost nothing: it's than I, with the verb am understood but not explicitly present.Now here's where things get strange. All we have to do is change that I to me and—voilà—the word than has become a preposition:The cat is more determined than me.There is no longer an invisible but understood verb; there is instead a grammatically very simple comparison.Any time you see than followed by me or any of the other pronouns that would follow the verb see (such as them, him, her—these are pronouns that function as the object of the verb),it's functioning as a preposition. The use has existed since at least the mid-16th century, but two centuries into English speakers' prepositional than habit, those 18th-century grammarians began to weigh in on the matter, and the most influential of them—one Bishop Lowth—said than was a conjunction and only a conjunction.If than is only a conjunction, then any pronoun that follows it must be the kind of pronoun that typically starts sentences (and clauses) off—that is, it must be functioning as the subject in the clause it introduces: I, he, she, they. And this is in fact what's been prescribed by those who would tell you to use your language better: "taller than I," "slower than she," "older than he," "more annoying than they" are, we're told, superior to "taller than me," "slower than her," "older than him," "more annoying than them."But there's another weird twist: the same grammarians who would have than only be followed by pronouns like I, he, she, and they also asserted that the pronoun whom—and not who—should follow than. "But whom is on the other team!!" you say. To which we say, "Right??"Whom is used (albeit rarely) as the object of the verb, as in "I wasn't sure whom to ask." Like the other object-of-the-verb pronouns, it's also used as the object of a preposition, and that's where it's most often encountered these days: "I wasn't sure for whom the gift was intended." Someone clarifying for our poor would-be gift-giver would answer with an object pronoun—"It's for them," not "It's for they." These days whom is so stuffy sounding as to be close to archaic, but to those 18th century grammarians it was one of the go-to pronouns. And good old Bishop Lowth believed that whom and not who should follow than. His explanation—which was that who has reference only to its antecedent and not to an understood verb or preposition—doesn't have much substance. We suspect that the real reason he wanted "than whom" is because John Milton, literary sensation who lived in the preceding century, used it in Paradise Lost. Lowth quotes the text:Which when Beelzebub perceived, than whom,
Satan except, none higher sat, with grave Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd A pillar of state...Another 18th century grammarian was, we can only assume, muttering to himself. William Ward identified than as both conjunction and preposition in his text a mere three years after Lowth's assertion about it being only a conjunction. And Mr. Ward is right: than is both a conjunction and a preposition, and its prepositional pedigree is unimpeachable: it was employed as such by the likes of Shakespeare, Swift, Johnson, and Boswell—and Milton with his "than whom." Competent writers of more recent centuries have used it as a preposition too.What this means for you, our persevering reader, is that you can use than as either also. Go now, with our blessing. And of any who may criticize your use of than we wish only this: may you prove yourself better at justifying your pronoun use than them. Or, than they because both are in fact totally fine.One last tip: if you want to follow the rule set up by an 18th century stickler because his opinions about than have been repeated for centuries without real justification, imagine a verb following the pronoun you want to put after than. It's not "more annoying than them (are)"; it's "more annoying than they (are)." You're welcome.This dictionary provides four possible senses of grammar, as the word specifically relates to the use of language: 1a: the study of the classes of words, their inflections, and their functions and relations in the sentence
1b: a study of what is to be preferred and what avoided in inflection and syntax
2a: the characteristic system of inflections and syntax of a language
2b: a system of rules that defines the grammatical structure of a language You may have noted that these senses are restricted to issues such as the syntax, inflections, and structure of a language, and do not touch upon whether such-and-such a word really means what one thinks its does. Thus, this definition of grammar would not cover matters such as whether it is correct to say fewer or less, or whether the word gift may be used as a verb. Some people would consider the question of whether a writer is potentially misusing a word to be more of an issue of usage—a sense of which we define as “the way in which words and phrases are actually used (as in a particular form or sense) in a language community”—than one of grammar.It is interesting to note that some people who wax vociferous on this subject appear to not distinguish between these two words. A blog post from 2015 titled “20 Misused English Words That Make Smart People Look Silly” goes over a list of commonly confused or questionable word choices (such as bring/take, ironic/coincidental, and imply/infer), and begins its final paragraph by stating “English grammar can be tricky….” There is nothing wrong with your grammar if you use ironic in place of coincidental (“isn’t it ironic, my meeting you here with her”). However, if you started shifting words out of their usual order (“isn’t ironic it…”), inflecting verbs in a decidedly non-standard way (“my meets you here”), or putting pronouns in the wrong case (“meeting you here with she”), then you certainly have issues with grammar, rather than usage.A similarly-themed post elsewhere on the web, “12 Grammatical Errors That Make You Look Unprofessional,” draws its reader's attention to the ostensibly grammatical issue of when to use that and which: “The rule: that is used with a restrictive clause, while which is used with a nonrestrictive clause and is always preceded and followed by commas.” This may be a rule (for some people, at least), but is it actually grammar? It’s difficult to say; the guidelines listed above of when one should use that and which weren’t common until the Fowler brothers, authors of the 1906 book The King’s English, decided people should pay attention to them. Undoubtedly there are some people out there who would say “Yes! Whatever Henry Watson Fowler says about language qualifies as grammar to me!” Other people, however, may take the view that grammar is best applied to the way that a language functions, rather than to rules laid out by a small handful of people, even if they are named Fowler.There is a graphic that has been widely shared on Facebook and other social media sites over the past few years, labelled “Top Ten Grammar Peeves.” Much of the information on the list is simply incorrect, such as the assertion that “An apostrophe is never used to form a plural” (they frequently serve this role), and “Affect is a verb. Effect is a noun” (each of these words is both a noun and a verb), but the aspect of this list that is more pertinent to our current topic is the extent to which grammar and usage seem to be viewed as synonymous. The list asserts that “nonplus does not mean what you think it means,” “Irregardless is not a word,” and another variant on the proper way one should use literally. To make the case that each of these perceived errors represents a lapse in grammar requires that we provide that word with a significantly broader meaning than it has traditionally had.None of this should be taken to mean that we are judging you if you use grammar to apply to what some people might insist is actually usage. It may very well be that grammar is indeed shifting its meaning to include referring to whether or not enormity may be used for “a large thing,” rather than only meaning “great wickedness.” If this is the case, and if there is sufficient evidence of this shifted meaning over time, dictionaries will most likely revise definitions of grammar to reflect this shift.So if you are using the word grammar in reference to non-grammatical functions (such as usage), then you are, in the eyes of some, part of the problem: you are actively working to change the meaning of a very important word in English. Before you hang your head in shame, however, you should be aware that well-nigh every speaker of the English language is, in some small way, working actively to change the language; the fact that our language is changing is simply a sign that it is alive, rather than dead. A grammatical category is a class of units (such as noun and verb) or features (such as number and case) that share a common set of characteristics. They are the building blocks of language, allowing us to communicate with one another. There are no hard and fast rules for what defines these shared traits, however, making it difficult for linguists to agree on precisely what is and is not a grammatical category.
As the linguist and author R.L. Trask put it, the term category in linguistics
"is so varied that no general definition is possible; in practice, a category is simply any class of related grammatical objects which someone wants to consider."
That said, there are some strategies you can use to group words into categories based on how they function in the English language. (Think of parts of speech.)