Is the word said a noun

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Go to Preferences page and choose from different actions for taps or mouse clicks. From the verb say: (⇒ conjugate) said is: ⓘClick the infinitive to see all available inflections v past v past p WordReference Random House Learner’s Dictionary of American English © 2023 said1 /sɛd/USA pronunciation   v.  pt. and pp. of say. adj. [before a noun] Lawmentioned previously; aforementioned:The said witness claims she saw the defendant. WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2023 said1  (sed),USA pronunciation v.  pt. and pp. of say.  adj. Law[Chiefly Law.]named or mentioned before; aforesaid; aforementioned:said witness; said sum. sa•id2  (sä′id),USA pronunciation n. [Islam.] Eastern Religionssayyid. Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers:: said /sɛd/ adj (prenominal) (in contracts, pleadings, etc) named or mentioned previously; aforesaid vb the past tense and past participle of say said /ˈsɑːɪd/ n a variant of sayyid WordReference Random House Learner’s Dictionary of American English © 2023 say1 /seɪ/USA pronunciation   v., said/sɛd/USA pronunciation  say•ing, adv., n., interj.  v. to utter or pronounce; speak:[~ + object]Don’t say a word. to express (something) in words; declare: [~ + (that) clause]I wrote and said (that) I wanted to see her again.[used with quotations]«I’ll be there,» he said.[~ + object]I’ve said my piece (= I’ve expressed my thoughts). to state (something) as an opinion or judgment: [~ + (that) clause]I say (that) we should wait here.[no object]What should I do? I just can’t say. to recite or repeat:[~ + object]said his prayers and went to bed. to express (a message, etc.), as through words, etc.:[~ + object]What does this painting say to you? to indicate or show:[~ + object]What does your watch say? The clock says ten-thirty. (used as a command, or as a polite command after let’s) suppose; assume; imagine:[~ + (that) clause]Say (that) you saw her on the street; what would you do then? Let’s say (that) I had gambled all our money away. adv. approximately; about:It’s, say, 14 feet across. for example:Suppose we asked a student, say, Janette here, for her opinion. n. [uncountable] what a person says or wishes to say; one’s turn to say something:She has already had her say. the right or chance to state an opinion or exercise influence:to have one’s say in a decision. interj. (used to express surprise or to get someone’s attention):Say! That’s great; you made it! Idioms Idioms go without saying, [it/that + ~ (+ (that) clause)] to be self-evident:It goes without saying (that) you must write a thank-you note for a gift. Idioms that is to say, [no object] in other words; meaning (that):The judge threw the book at him; that is to say, gave him the maximum sentence. The verbs say and tell are sometimes confused. The verb say does not take a person as its direct object, only a word or clause:He said a few words and sat down.If a person is mentioned after say, the word to must be used before it:He said to her that he was ready.The verb tell may take a person as an object:He told her he was ready. WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2023 say1  (sā),USA pronunciation v., said, say•ing, adv., n., interj.  v.t. to utter or pronounce; speak:What did you say? I said «Hello!» to express in words; state; declare; word:Say it clearly and simply. It’s hard to know how to say this tactfully. to state as an opinion or judgment:I say her plan is the better one. to be certain, precise, or assured about; determine:It is hard to say what is wrong. to recite or repeat:to say one’s prayers. to report or allege; maintain:People say he will resign. to express (a message, viewpoint, etc.), as through a literary or other artistic medium:a writer with something to say. to indicate or show:What does your watch say? to assume as a hypothesis or estimate:Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it’s true. v.i. to speak; declare; express an opinion. Idioms that is to say, that is what is meant; in other words:I believe his account of the story, that is to say, I have no reason to doubt it. adv. approximately; about:It’s, say, 14 feet long. for example:If you serve, say tuna fish and potato chips, it will cost much less. n. what a person says or has to say. the right or opportunity to speak, decide, or exercise influence:to have one’s say in choosing the candidate. a turn to say something:It is now my say. interj. (used to express surprise, get attention, etc.) bef. 900; Middle English seyen, seggen, Old English secgan; cognate with Dutch zeggen, German sagen, Old Norse segja; akin to saw3 say′er, n.  say2  (sā),USA pronunciation v.t., n. [Brit. Dial.] British Termsassay. Middle English sayen, aphetic variant of assayen to assay 1350–1400 say3  (sā),USA pronunciation n.  Textilesa thin silk or woolen fabric similar to serge, much used in the 16th century. Gaulish Latin saga, plural of sagum woolen cloak, said to be Old French saie Middle English 1250–1300 Say  (sā),USA pronunciation n.  Jean Bap•tiste  (zhän ba tēst′),USA pronunciation 1767–1832, French economist. Cf. Say’s law.  Biographical Thomas, 1787–1834, U.S. entomologist. WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2023 say•yid  (sä′yid, sā′id),USA pronunciation n.  Eastern Religions(in Islamic countries) a supposed descendant of Muhammad through his grandson Hussein, the second son of his daughter Fatima. Eastern Religionsa title of respect, esp. for royal personages. Also, said, say′ed, say′id.  Arabic: lord 1780–90 Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers:: say /seɪ/ vb (says /sɛz/, saying, said)(mainly tr) to speak, pronounce, or utter (also intr) to express (an idea) in words; tell (also intr; may take a clause as object) to state (an opinion, fact, etc) positively; declare; affirm to recite: to say grace (may take a clause as object) to report or allege: they say we shall have rain today (may take a clause as object) to take as an assumption; suppose: let us say that he is lying (may take a clause as object) to convey by means of artistic expression to make a case for go without saying ⇒ to be so obvious as to need no explanation I say! ⇒ chiefly Brit informal an exclamation of surprise not to say ⇒ even; and indeed that is to say ⇒ in other words; more explicitly to say the least ⇒ without the slightest exaggeration; at the very least adv approximately: there were, say, 20 people present for example: choose a number, say, four n the right or chance to speak: let him have his say authority, esp to influence a decision: he has a lot of say in the company’s policy a statement of opinion: you’ve had your say, now let me have mine interj US Canadian informal an exclamation to attract attention or express surprise, etc Etymology: Old English secgan; related to Old Norse segja, Old Saxon seggian, Old High German sagēn ˈsayer n Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers:: sayyid, sayid /ˈsaɪɪd/said n a Muslim claiming descent from Mohammed’s grandson Husain a Muslim honorary title Etymology: 17th Century: from Arabic: lord ‘said‘ also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations): » I’ll help you find them,” Amy said and followed …. [comma or period/stop ] » Is that Terebyeva the one you said had made a third free marriage? « < The novel is said to be / It is said that the novel is made> into a movie. » Would you like a cup of coffee» I said to Jim. «No, thanks. I must go now.» he said. _____ what she said, I still cannot agree with her. (Admitted/Admitting/It admitting) — I _______ the book but when I heard what the critics said I changed my mind. , even if it is easier said than done. … he would apologize for what he (had) said … or so he said … said A does, says A does, OR said A did? ….said Mr. Chow laughing …but that too much had been said already. …he is important — and (is) said to be one of… …said another driver told him he had seen a car drove off. …she said, taking a sip/gulp of her tea …whatever else is to be said of… ..and there was [more and more] being said about how my relationship with the media was tense. »Thank you. Please come again.» — often said to customers ‘() Real enough,’ she said, ‘though I handled most of his training.’ ‘all that you said is true’ ‘Baubles,’ said Harry ‘<Eyes ain’t what they used to be>,’ he said. ‘Gerad,’ She said, ‘is down seeing to harbor fortifications’ ‘I thought you said…’ changed to ‘I think you said…’ ‘It is said by…’ or ‘It was said by…’ ‘Like his impudence,’ said Peggotty ‘Luce?’ he said, the excitement gone from his voice. ‘said of’ ‘That’, he said, ‘is stupid.’ [Punctuation for direct speech.] ‘<Try me>,’ Dana said. more… Look up «said» at Merriam-Webster Look up «said» at dictionary.com In other languages: Spanish | French | Italian | Portuguese | Romanian | German | Dutch | Swedish | Russian | Polish | Czech | Greek | Turkish | Chinese | Japanese | Korean | Arabic

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Britannica Dictionary definition of SAY

Britannica Dictionary definition of SAY

Britannica Dictionary definition of SAY

chiefly US, informal

For those interested in a little info about this site: it’s a side project that I developed while working on Describing Words and Related Words. Both of those projects are based around words, but have much grander goals. I had an idea for a website that simply explains the word types of the words that you search for — just like a dictionary, but focussed on the part of speech of the words. And since I already had a lot of the infrastructure in place from the other two sites, I figured it wouldn’t be too much more work to get this up and running.

The dictionary is based on the amazing Wiktionary project by wikimedia. I initially started with WordNet, but then realised that it was missing many types of words/lemma (determiners, pronouns, abbreviations, and many more). This caused me to investigate the 1913 edition of Websters Dictionary — which is now in the public domain. However, after a day’s work wrangling it into a database I realised that there were far too many errors (especially with the part-of-speech tagging) for it to be viable for Word Type.

Finally, I went back to Wiktionary — which I already knew about, but had been avoiding because it’s not properly structured for parsing. That’s when I stumbled across the UBY project — an amazing project which needs more recognition. The researchers have parsed the whole of Wiktionary and other sources, and compiled everything into a single unified resource. I simply extracted the Wiktionary entries and threw them into this interface! So it took a little more work than expected, but I’m happy I kept at it after the first couple of blunders.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source code that was used in this project: the UBY project (mentioned above), @mongodb and express.js.

Currently, this is based on a version of wiktionary which is a few years old. I plan to update it to a newer version soon and that update should bring in a bunch of new word senses for many words (or more accurately, lemma).

There is no single syntactic or distributional property of nouns which is sufficient to guarantee the inclusion of an item in the word class.

For most modern grammarians there is a major subcategory of the noun class, the ᴘʀᴏɴᴏᴜɴ, the members of which show slightly different properties and distributions. The remainder of the class can be subdivided into the subcategories of ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴏɴ ɴᴏᴜɴ and ᴘʀᴏᴘᴇʀ ɴᴏᴜɴ. Again, proper nouns have certain properties which mark them out from common nouns. For the purposes of this answer, I am concentrating solely on common nouns. Common nouns may be seen as the central, prototypical members of the noun class.

1. Four core syntactic functions/ grammatical relations

Huddleston & Pullum, 2005, describe four syntactic functions that may be carried out by phrases headed by nouns (including phrases consisting of just one word). Within the clause they function freely as Subjects, Objects and Predicative Complements. Within Preposition Phrase structure they occur freely as Complements. This fact is one aspect of nouns that is shared by all the subcategories of noun. Here are some examples with the common noun dog:

• Dogs bite. (Subject)
• I like dogs. (Direct Object)
• We are dogs. (Predicative Complement)
• I’m not scared of dogs. (Complement of Preposition)

If the word being investigated has one of these functions, or is the head of a phrase carrying out one of these functions then there is a good chance that it is a noun. Notice though, that all of these functions or syntactic roles may be carried out by other words or types of phrase. So having one of these functions is in no way a guarantee of nounship. For example, verbs, finite and non-finite clauses also frequently occur as Subjects:

• Smoking is bad for you. (Verb as subject)
• To err is human. (Verb phrase as Subject)
• That he was continuously late was a problem for us. (Finite clause as Subject)
• For him to do that would be inconvenient. (Non-finite clause as Subject)

A good question at this point might be: why does smoking count as a verb and not a noun here? The answer is that although it is in Subject function, it still retains the syntactic properties of being (a non-finite form of) a verb. For example, this verb can still take a Direct Object:

• Smoking cigarettes is bad for you.

It can still take a preposition phrase as a Modifier or Adjunct (read adverbial) like other verbs:

• Smoking in the morning is bad for you.

It can take an adverb as modifier:

• Smoking quickly is bad for you.

It is clear then that if we are to bother to have parts of speech these need to be separated out from the syntactic role or function that a word may have in a phrase or sentence. (We’ll do a more thorough investigation of a case study at the end of the post.)

The syntactic role that a word has may be more or less important depending on what categories are contenders for the word. So for example, adjectives commonly function as Predicative Complements, so if the contending word is in Predicative Complement function, and we are wondering if it’s an adjective or a noun, this is not much use to us. However, if we’re wondering whether an item is an adverb or a noun, then the fact that the word is a Predicative Complement would be fairly decisive in showing it is a noun. Adverbs generally can’t function as Predicative Complements:

• *They are worriedly. (adverb as PC — ungrammatical)
• They are worriers. (noun phrase as PC)

2. Other syntactic roles of common nouns

The prototypical functions described above apply to the whole class of nouns. Common nouns however have other syntactic roles that they often take. In particular nouns in English, as well as appearing as the Heads of Noun Phrases, can also be Modifiers within the Noun Phrase structure.

To illustrate, take any item that may have a wrapper, for example biscuits. We can freely generate the compound noun biscuit wrapper. Now if some mad people start collecting these, they will be biscuit wrapper collectors, where the compound noun biscuit wrapper is modifying collectors. If there were enough of them, these people might form a biscuit wrapper collectors association where you could be a Biscuit Wrapper Collectors Association member, a disgruntled one of whom might leave and become a Biscuit Wrapper Collectors Association member assassinator. You get the picture. Just in the same way that both adjectives and nouns can be Predicative Complements, they both freely function as Modifiers within Noun Phrases. If a word cannot be freely used to modify a common noun, then this word is almost definitely not a common noun (pronouns do not freely modify other nouns, nor are they freely modifiable by other nouns).

Nouns and noun phrases also occur much less freely in other types of syntactic roles. So for example, in the following sentence, the noun phrase every three weeks functions as Adjunct of the verb phrase (I use Huddleston & Pullum’s terminology here, where ᴀᴅᴊᴜɴᴄᴛ is a special term for a modifier of a verb phrase. Other grammars use the term Adjunct in the same way that the term ᴍᴏᴅɪғɪᴇʀ is used here, namely for an item which is syntactically extra within any given phrase structure):

• Bob gets his back waxed every three weeks.

The phrase every three weeks here is a Noun Phrase. The head of this phrase is the noun weeks. Although this phrase is an Adjunct, there are no grounds for considering it an Adverb Phrase, nor for considering weeks an adverb. The word weeks here retains all of the properties of nouns discussed elsewhere in this piece. It is this fact that makes it a noun. So, the point here is that although the occurrence of nouns as Adjuncts in Verb Phrases is quite restricted, being an Adjunct does not prevent a word from being a noun, although it may make it statistically less likely to be one.

There are many other functions that nouns can have. For example they can be Modifiers in preposition phrases:

• They were five minutes into the match.

I will not attempt to give a definitive list here — if such a list even exists. Suffice it to say, that if a word has a syntactic role that is known to be performed by nouns, then in order to determine the word class of the item, we need to compare the ability of rival word classes to fulfill that role , and look at other criteria too.

3. Modification

Nouns are prototypically modified by adjectives, but as has been shown they are also very commonly modified by other nouns. However, nouns are rarely if ever modified by adverbs. In the very rare instances where they are, the adverb must necessarily come after the noun and not before it:

• The arrival recently of the plague was going to have disastrous consequences for the farmers.
• *The recently arrival of the plague was going to have disastrous consequences for the farmers. (pre-modification of noun by an adverb — ungrammatical)

If a word is modifiable by an adjective, and not by an adverb then it is very, very likely to be a noun. Adverbs can modify many other types of words and phrase, but they are excluded from pre-modifying nouns.

Nouns are frequently post-modified by other phrases, notably preposition phrases, relative clauses and adjective phrases.

4. Complementation

Many nouns take various complements, such as finite clauses and preposition phrases:

• The knowledge that this will not be done easily.
• My dislike of it.

However, Huddleston & Pullum note that:

… nouns differ from verbs and prepositions in that they do not take objects: I dislike it, but not * my dislike it. (p. 326)

This is one of the factors that rules out smoking from being a noun in the examples further above.

5. Determiners

Certain words occur nearly exclusively in Determinative function in noun phrases. These external dependents of the noun are a good indication of a word being a noun. Here are some examples:

• this patient
• every opportunity

The determiner this in the example above shows that this is the noun patient and not the homonymous adjective. The word every here is a near cast iron guarantee that the word opportunity is a noun. However, not all determiners are as good as others for this job. In particular, the can occur in Determinative function in phrases that have no noun:

• I’ll take the blue one and the green.
• the good the bad and the ugly
• the bigger the better

Here we see the occurring with adjectives. Notice that every cannot be used in these ways.

6. Inflection for number

Common nouns usually inflect for number and for case. Typically, plurally inflected nouns take /s/ or /z/ as a suffix represented in the writing by the letter ‘S’. If we see a word which seems to have an ‘S ending because it is plural, this is a strong indication that the item is a noun. If a word doesn’t inflect for number then this may be a sign that it is not a noun. However, we need to be a bit careful. There are many irregular plurals in English:

• teeth
• mice
• data

There are also nouns which are the same in the singular or plural:

• a fish, five hundred fish
• a sheep, two sheep

There are also nouns that end in an ‘S’ whether they are singular or plural:

• crossroads, means, kennels

There are also nouns that only occur in the plural:

• police, cattle, minutae, odds, doldrums, clothes

There are nouns that only occur in the singular, or are uncountable:

• crockery, luggage, equipment.

What this shows is that the ability for a word to show singular and plural forms with ‘S’ is useful, but a lack of inflection, or of regular inflection, is not sufficient reason to exclude an item from being a noun.

7. Inflection for case

Common nouns inflect for case. They have two forms. The uninflected form is often called PLAIN CASE. The other case is GENITIVE. The genitive form involves the suffix/clitic /s/ or /z/, represented in the writing as ‘S’ used in conjunction with an apostrophe:

• people, people’s
• woman, woman’s
• women, women’s
• baboon, baboon’s

We need to be a little careful here. First of all, this clitic actually gets appended to noun phrases, not just nouns:

• The woman you like’s boyfriend

Here we see this clitic appearing after the noun phrase the woman you like. We should not infer from the writing that like is a noun here! Secondly some phrases without nouns can also take this clitic:

• The blind’s access to braille versions of periodicals …

Here we see the clitic after the phrase the blind. Some writers like Huddleston & Pullum regard the blind here as a noun phrase without a noun. Here we see this clitic attached to an adjective.

8. Negative attributes

Of course, when considering whether a phrase is a noun or some other type of word, it is the properties that another class of words have and that nouns don’t, which will provided the decisive data. Importantly, nouns can’t function as the head of a main clause. In other words they can’t assume the syntactic role of Predicator (the function carried out by the verb).

Another feature of nouns is that they are not gradable, whereas many other adjectives are. Equally it is the property of not being modifiable by adverbs which is crucial for demonstrating that a noun modifying other nouns is still a noun and not an adjective.

There are many other negative criteria we can use to demonstrate that a given word is likely to be or definitely isn’t a noun.

9. The pronoun substitution test

It is sometimes posited that a good test to see if an item is a noun is to see whether it can be grammatically replaced with a pronoun. In actual fact, although nouns will often be replaceable with pronouns, more often than not in declarative sentences so will any other phrase in Subject or Object function, or functioning as the Complement of a Preposition:

• 1 a. To err is human.
• 1 b. It is human.
• 2 a. I don’t like that you always take the window seat
• 2 b. I don’t like it
• 3 a. I’m worried about him eating all the strawberry ones when I’m not looking.
• 3 b. I’m worried about it

None of the items that have been replaced by the pronoun it here is a noun. Notice as well, that pronouns don’t ‘replace’ nouns if the noun has dependents. When we substitute a phrase with a pronoun, the entire noun phrase goes, determiners, modifiers and complements too. In addition we cannnot use this test when a noun has the function of Modifier within a phrase including when they are Adjuncts (- modifiers in verb phrases). The nouns and noun phrases in the following examples cannot be replaced by pronouns:

• three miles away from here
• miles wide
• two days late
• the writer James Joyce
• we went there the day before yesterday

It seems that the pronoun substitution test is of limited value. The item being replaced may not be a noun. Furthermore nouns can often not be replaced at all depending on their syntactic role. If we have to determine the syntactic role before we do the test there is no point doing it. The reason is that the syntactic role will already tell us how likely an item is to be a noun with the same reliability as the pronoun test. This is because in declarative sentences any item in Subject function will be able to be replaced by a pronoun, whether it’s a noun or not. So the chances of the word being replaceable by a pronoun are the same as the chances of the word being a Subject. Neither of these is a guarantee of nounship. The syntactic role that an item has in a given sentence is very rarely a definitive indication of the category of a word. The reason is, of course, that all syntactic roles apart from Predicator may be carried out by more than one type of word or phrase.

A trivial point, a red herring

There are of course some words which sound and are spelt the same. This includes words whose meaning is radically different, as well as words with very similar meanings which belong to different parts of speech. It is common in linguistics to talk about lexemes. We require the notion of a lexeme to indicate that words like liked and liking are versions of the same entity, namely they are inflections of the verb like. So liked and liking are instantiations of the same lexeme.

However, we would not say that man in man of the match and man the decks are instantiations of the same lexeme, even though they may look and sound identical. The reason is that the first is an instance of the noun man whereas the second is an instance of the verb. Because we consider them as instantiations of different lexemes with the same sound and the same spelling, these words are considered homonyms. Although they have some semantic similarities, they represent different types of concept. Also syntactically, the noun man belongs with other instantiations of the noun such as man’s, men and men’s, whereas the verb belongs with mans, manning, manned and the present tense form man.

So what does this have to do with the question here? Well, it is often said that the category of a word depends on how it used in a sentence. Now if «word» here means a particular series of sounds or a group of letters, then this is trivially, but maybe interestingly, true. We can only understand whether a group of letters represents the noun lexeme man or the verb lexeme man, for example by seeing this group of letters in context.

However, there’s another, very harmful and unprincipled idea which sounds very similar, which is that a word should be assigned its part of speech according to what syntactic role, or grammatical function it has in a particular sentence. People who have this kind of idea say things like:

• this word is modifying a noun therefore it is an adjective.

The problem with this type of theory is that it works on the schoolkid assumption that syntactic roles belong to specific word categories. This is because, sadly, the teaching of grammar in schools is of particularly poor quality. Most people are taught at school that words that describe nouns are adjectives, words that describe verbs are adverbs, nouns represent things and verbs represent actions. None of this of course is true.

Here is what Geoffrey Pullum has to say about this problem. The quote is taken from LEXICAL CATEGORIZATION IN ENGLISH DICTIONARIES AND TRADITIONAL GRAMMARS 2009:

Most of the deepest blunders in English grammar as traditionally presented over the past two or three centuries stem from a single long-standing confusion between (i) grammatical categories or word classes; (ii) syntactic functions or grammatical relations; and (iii) semantic and discourse-related notions.

It is surprising to see the tenacity of this confusion. It does not appear in other domains. People do not confuse butter knives with screwdrivers, even though occasionally someone who cannot find a screwdriver may use a butter knife to turn a screw. Yet in grammar people just cannot keep syntactically relevant categories or classes of words separate from the relational properties they have when used in particular constructions, and cannot keep either separate from meaning. They insist on trying to define the first of these in terms of the other two, and they have done so since the very earliest attempts to write grammars of English.

What this means is that we should be able to distinguish between the fact that something modifies a noun and the fact that it is a particular part of speech. Additionally, ideas such as «this word tells us when something happened, so it is an adverb» or even worse «this word tells us when something happened, so it is being used as an adverb» are severely misguided. Neither the semantic content of an item, nor its syntactic role are defining characteristics of its part of speech.

Case Studies

Probably the easiest way to understand how we might run various tests to check the noun status of an item, is to look at these tests in action. There are (or will be shortly) two case studies of particular words in a different post here.

According
to their morphological composition we distinguish simple, derivative
and compound nouns.

1. Simple
   nouns are nouns which have neither prefixes nor suf­fixes. They
   are indecomposable: chair,
   table, room, map, fish, work.

2. Derivative
   nouns are nouns which have derivative elements (prefixes or suffixes
   or both): reader,
   sailor, blackness, childhood, misconduct, inexperience.

Productive
noun-forming suffixes are:

-er:
reader,
teacher, worker

-ist:
communist,
telegraphist, dramatist

~ess:
heiress,
hostess, actress

-77m:
carelessness,
madness, blackness

-ism:
socialism,
nationalism, imperialism

Unproductive
suffixes are:

•hood:
childhood,
manhood -dom:
freedom

-ship:
friendship,
relationship -ment:
development
-ante:
importance
-ence:
dependence
-ty:
cruelty
-ity:
generosity

3.
Compound nouns are nouns built from two or more stems. Compound nouns
often have one stress. The meaning of a com­pound often differs
from the meanings of its elements.

The
main types of compound nouns are as follows:

1. noun-stem
   + noun-stem: appletree,
   snowball;

2. adjective-stem
   + noun-stem: blackbird,
   bluebell;

3. verb-stem-|-noun-stem:
   pickpocket;
   the
   stem of a gerund or of a participle may be the first component of a
   compound noun: dining-room,
   reading-hall, dancing-girl.

§ 5. Classification of nouns.

1. Nouns
   fall under two classes: (A) proper nouns; (B) common nouns.Proper
   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.

A
large number of nouns now proper were originally common nouns (Brown,
Smith, Mason).

Proper
nouns may change their meaning and become common nouns:

George
went over to the table and took a sandwich and a glass of champagne.
(Aldington)

1. Common
   nouns are names that can be applied to any individ­ual of a
   class of persons or things (e. g. man,
   dog, book), collec­tions
   of similar individuals or things regarded as a single unit (e. g.
   peasantry,
   family), materials
   (e. g. snow,
   iron, cotton) or
   abstract notions (e. g. kindness,
   development).

Thus
there are different groups of common nouns: class nouns, collective
nouns, nouns of material and abstract nouns.

Nouns
may also be classified from another point of view: nouns denoting
things (the word thing
is
used in a broad sense) that can be counted are called countable
nouns; nouns denoting things that cannot be counted are called
uncountable nouns.

¹

¹ The
name proper
is
from Lat. proprius
‘one’s
own’. Hence a piopcr
name means
one’s own individual name, as distinct from a common
name, that
can be given to a class of individuals. The name common
is
from Lat. communis
and
means that which is shared by several things or individuals
possessing some common characteristic.

² On
the use of articles with class nouns sec Chapter II, § 2, 3.

1.
Class nouns denote persons or things belonging to a class. They are
countables and have two numbers: singular and plural. They are
generally used with an article.²

«Well,
sir,» said Mrs. Parker, «I wasn’t in the shop
above
a great deal.» (Mansfield)

He
goes to the part of the town where the shops
are.
(Lessing)

1. Collective
   nouns denote
   a number or collection of similar individuals or things as a single
   unit.

Collective
nouns fall under the following groups:

1. nouns
   used only in the singular and denoting a number of things collected
   together and regarded as a single .object: foliage,
   machinery.

It
was
not
restful, that green foliage.
(London)

Machinery
new
to the industry in Australia was
introduced
for

preparing
land. (Agricultural
Gazette)

1. nouns
   which are singular in form though plural in meaning: police,
   poultry, cattle, people, gentry. They
   are usually called nouns of multitude. When the subject of the
   sentence is a noun of multi­tude the verb used as predicate is
   in the plural:

I
had no idea the police
were
so
devilishly prudent. (Shaw)
Unless
cattle
are
in
good condition in calving, milk production will never reach a high
level. (Agricultural
Gazette) The
weather was warm and the people
were
sitting
at their doors. (Dickens)

1. nouns
   that may be both singular and plural: family,
   crowd, fleet, nation. We
   can think of a number of crowds, fleets or different nations as well
   as of a single crowd, fleet, etc.

A
small crowd
is
lined tip to see the guests arrive. (Shaw)
Accordingly
they were soon afoot, and walking in the direction of the scene of
action, towards which crowds
of
people were already pouring from a variety of quarters. (Dickens)

1. Nouns
   of material denote
   material: iron,
   gold, paper, tea, water. They
   are uncountables and are generally used without any article.¹

There
was a scent of honey
from
the lime-trees in flower. (Gals­worthy)

There
was coffee
still
in the urn. (Wells)

Nouns
of material are used in the plural to denote different sorts of a
given material.

…
that his senior counted upon him in this enterprise, and had
consigned a quantity of select wines
to
him… (Thackeray)

¹
On the use of articles wilh_i_flpuns_iof
matérialisée
Chapter II, § 5, 6, 7.

17

Bi6jiiHT3Ka

Nouns
of material may turn into class nouns (thus becoming countables)
when they come to express an individual object of definite shape.

Compare:

To
the left were clean panes of glass.
(Ch.
Bronte)

«He
came in here,» said the waiter looking at the light through

the
tumbler, «ordered a glass
of
this ale.» (Dickens)

But
the person in the glass
made
a face at her, and Miss Moss

went
out. (Mansfield)

4.
Abstract
nouns denote
some quality, state, action or idea: kindness,
sadness, fight. They
are usually uncountables, though some of them may be countables (e.
g. idea,
hour).Therefore
when the youngsters saw that mother looked neither frightened nor
offended, they gathered new courage.
(Dodge)
Accustomed
to John Reed’s abuse — 1 never had an idea
of
plying to it. (Ch.
Bronte) It’s
these people with fixed ideas.
(Galsworthy)

Abstract
nouns may change their meaning and become class nouns. This change
is marked by the use of the article and of the plural number:

beauty
a beauty beautiessight a
sight sights

He
was responsive to beauty
and
here was cause to respond. (London)

She
was a beauty.
(Dickens)

…
but she isn’t one of those horrid regular beauties.
(Aldington)
§
6. The
category of number.

English
countable nouns have two numbers —the singular
and
the plural.

The
main types of the plural forms of English nouns are as follows:

I.
1. The general rule for forming the plural of English nouns is by
adding the ending -s
(-es) to
the singular; -s is pronounced in different ways:

[iz]
after sibilants: noses,
horses, bridges.

[z]
after voiced consonants other than sibilants and after vowels:
flowers,
beds, doves, bees, boys.

¹

¹
On the use of articles with abstract nouns see Chapter II, § 8, 9,
10, 11.

[s]
after voiceless consonants other than sibilants: caps,
books, hats, cliffs.

1. If
   the noun ends in -s,
   -ss, -x, -sh, -ch, or
   -tch,
   the
   plural is formed by adding -es
   to
   the singular:

bus
— buses box
— boxes bench
— benches

glass
— glasses brush— brushes match — matches

1. If
   the noun ends in -y
   preceded
   by a consonant, y
   is
   changed into / before -es.

fly
— flies army — armies lady —ladies

In
proper names, however, the plural is formed by adding the ending -s
to the singular: Mary,
Marys.

Note.
—IE the final -y
is
preceded by a vowel the plural is formed by simply adding -s to the
singular.

day
—days monkey— monkeysplay
—plays toy . — toyskey
—keys boy —boys

1. If
   the noun ends in -o
   preceded
   by a consonant, the plural is generally formed by adding -es.
   Only
   a few nouns ending in -o preceded by a consonant form the plural in
   -s.

cargo
—cargoes hero — heroes potato — potatoes echo — echoes

b
u t: piano — pianos solo — solos photo — photos

All
nouns ending in -o
preceded
by a vowel form the plural in -s and not in -es.

cuckoo
— cuckoos portfolio — portfolios

There
are a few nouns ending in -o
which
form the plural both in -s
and
-es:

mosquito
— mosquitos or
mosquitoes

1. With
   certain nouns the final voiceless consonants are changed into the
   corresponding voiced consonants when the noun takes the plural
   form.

(a)
The following nouns ending in -f
(in
some cases followed by a mute e)
change
it into v
(both
in spelling and pronunciation) in the plural:

wife	— wives	thief	— thieves
knife	— knives	calf	— calves
life	— lives	half	— halves
sheaf	— sheaves	shelf	— shelves
leaf	— leaves	wolf	— wolves

There
are some nouns ending in
-/
which have two forms in the plural:

scarf
—scarfs or
scarves
wharf— wharfs or wharves

1. Nouns
   ending in -th
   [8]
   after long vowels change it into [3]
   in pronunciation (which does not affect their spelling).

bath
[baG]- baths [badz| path [pa.6] —paths Ipadz] oath [ouS]
—
oaths [oudz]

But
[6]
is always retained after consonants (including r)
and
short vowels:

smith
—smiths [smi6s] month
—
months [nun8s] myth —myths [mi6s] birth —births [ba:6s] health
—
healths [helGs]

1. One
   noun ending in [s] changes it into [z] (in pronunciation):

house
[haus]
—
houses I’hauziz]

II.
The plural forms of some nouns are survivals of earlier formations.

1. There
   are seven nouns which form the plural by changing the root vowel:

man
—men goose
—geese

woman
—women mouse
—mice

foot
—feet louse
—lice

tooth
—
teeth

1. There
   are two nouns which form the plural in -en:

ox
—
oxen child
—
children

Note.—The
noun brother
has,
beside its usual plural form brothers,
another
plural form brethren,
which
is hardly eer used in colloquial language. It belongs to the
elevated style and denotes people of the same creed and not
relationship.

The
noun cov!
has,
beside its usual plural form cows,
a
plural kine,
which
sometimes occurs in poetry.

3.
In some nouns the plural form does not differ from the sin­gular:
deer,
sheep, swine, fish, t-out.

1. Some
   words borrowed from Latin or Greek keep their Latin or Greek plural
   forms: e. g. phenomenon,
   phenomena; datum, data; crisis, crises; stimulus, stimuli; formula,
   formulae; index, indices. Some
   of these nouns have acquired English plural forms: memorandums,
   formulas, indexes, terminuses, etc.

The
tendency to use the foreign plural is still strong in the technical
language of science, but in fiction and colloquial English there is
an evident inclination to give to certain words the regular English
plural forms in -s.
Thus
in some cases two plural forms are preserved (formulae,
formulas; antennae, antennas).

1. In
   compound nouns the plural is formed in different ways.

1. As
   a rule a compound noun forms the plural by adding -s to the
   head-word:

editor-in-chief
— editors-in-chief brother-in-law — brothers-in-law looker-on
— lookers-on

1. In
   some compound nouns the final element takes the plural form:

lady-bird
— lady-birds

1. If
   there is no noun-stem in the compound, -s is added to the last
   element:

forget-me-not
— forget-me-nots merry-go-round — merry-go-rounds

V. Some
nouns have only the plural form:

1. Trousers,
   spectacles, breeches, scissors, tongs, fetters. These
   are for the most part names of things which imply plurality or
   consist of two or more parts.

2. Billiards,
   barracks, works. These
   nouns may be treated as singulars. We may say: a
   chemical works, a barracks, etc.

3. Words
   like phonetics,
   physics, politics, optics, etc.
   are usually treated as singulars except in some special cases.

It
was
not
practical politics!
(Galsworthy)

All
party politics
are
top
dressing. (Galsworthy)

4.
The word news
is
treated as a singular.

When
she goes to make little purchases, there is
no
news
for
her. (Thackeray)

The
news
he
gave them was
to
be read in the lamentations. (Sabatini)

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