What do inanimate nouns mean. Animate and inanimate nouns

The concept of a noun. Signs of nouns. Noun ranks

1. Noun — independent part speech that designates a subject and answers questions who? what?

2. The main features of a noun.

General grammatical meaning - this is the meaning of the subject, that is, everything that can be said about: who is this? or what's this? This is the only part of speech that can mean anything, namely:

1) the names of specific things and objects (house, tree, notebook, book, briefcase, bed, lamp);

2) the names of living beings (human, engineer, girl, youth, deer, mosquito);

3) the names of various substances (oxygen, gasoline, lead, sugar, salt);

4) the names of various natural phenomena and public life(storm, frost, rain, holiday, war);

5) the names of abstract properties and features (freshness, whiteness, blueness);

6) the names of abstract actions and states (waiting, killing, running).

Morphological features the name of a noun is gender, number, case, declension. Nouns

1) belong to one of the four genders - male, female, middle, common, but do not change by gender: ocean, river, sea; cm. ;

2) change by numbers: ocean - oceans, river - rivers, sea - seas;

3) change in cases: ocean - ocean, ocean, ocean etc.; cm.

Change in cases and numbers is called declension. Cm.

The initial form of the noun is the nominative case singular.

Syntactic signs: in a sentence nouns most often act as subjects or objects, but can be any other members of the sentence:

Book makes a person the master of the universe (P. Pavlenko) - subject ;
The whole life of mankind settled in a book (A. Herzen) - addition ;
Book - storage knowledge (B. Field) - predicative ;
Dampness from the earth began to cool the side (A. Gaidar) - inconsistent definition ;
Above gray-haired plain the wind of the sea catches up the clouds (M. Lermontov) - circumstance of place ;
The people will not forget winner their selfless heroes (V. Lebedev-Kumach) - Appendix .

A noun in a sentence can act as appeals(not a member of the offer): Lucy , I'm waiting for you!

3. By nature lexical meaning Nouns are divided into two categories:

common nouns are nouns that name a class of homogeneous objects: table, boy, bird, spring;

proper nouns- these are nouns that name single (individual) objects, which include names, patronymics, last names of people, nicknames of animals, names of cities, rivers, seas, oceans, lakes, mountains, deserts (geographical names), names of books, paintings, movies , magazines, newspapers, performances, names of ships, trains, various organizations, historical events etc.: Alexander, Zhuchka, Russia, Astrakhan, Volga, Baikal, The Captain's Daughter.

Note. Proper names nouns have a number of features.

1) Proper names can consist of one word ( Moscow, Caspian, Caucasus, "Mtsyri") or from several words ( Nizhny Novgorod, New Orleans, Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky, "War and Peace", East Siberian Sea).

2) Proper names are written with capital letter (Tula, Alps).

3) Names (titles) of books, newspapers, magazines, films, paintings, ships, trains, etc. are written with a capital letter and, in addition, are distinguished by quotation marks ( the novel "Eugene Onegin", the painting "Morning in the Forest", the ship "Vasily Surikov").

4) Proper names are not used in the plural and are not combined with numerals (except when designating different objects and persons that are called the same: We have two Ira and three Olya in our class.). City of Naberezhnye Chelny.

5) Proper nouns can turn into common nouns, and common nouns into proper ones, for example: Narcissus(the name of a handsome young man in ancient Greek mythology) - narcissus(flower); Boston(city in USA) — Boston(woolen fabric), Boston(slow waltz), Boston (card game); work - the newspaper "Trud".

4. By meaning, nouns are divided into four main categories:

specific- these are nouns that name specific objects of animate and inanimate nature (they change in numbers, combined with cardinal numbers). For example: table ( tables, two tables), student ( students two students), mountain ( mountains, two mountains);

real are nouns that are called various substances, a homogeneous mass of something (they have only one form of number - singular or plural; do not combine in cardinal numbers; combine with words a lot, a little, as well as with different units of measurement). For example: air (no plural; can't say: two air, but you can: a lot of air, little air; two cubic meters of air), dirt (no plural; one cannot say: two dirt, but you can: a lot of dirt, little dirt; two kilos of dirt), ink (no singular; one cannot say: five ink, but you can: a lot of ink, little ink, two hundred grams of ink), sawdust (no singular; one cannot say: five sawdust, but you can: a lot of sawdust, little sawdust; half a kilo of sawdust);

abstract (abstract)- these are nouns that name abstract phenomena that are perceived mentally (they have only the singular or only the plural, do not combine with cardinal numbers). For example: compassion (no plural; you can't say: two compassions), warmth (no plural; one cannot say: two heats), bitterness (no plural; one cannot say: two bitternesses), chores (there is no singular; one cannot say: five troubles);

collective- these are nouns that name a lot of identical objects as one whole (they have only the singular form; they are not combined with cardinal numbers). For example: youth (no plural, although it denotes a multitude; one cannot say: two young people), teaching (there is no plural, although it denotes a multitude; one cannot say: two teachers), beast (there is no plural, although it denotes a multitude; one cannot say: two beasts), foliage (no plural, although it denotes a multitude; one cannot say: two leaves);

single are nouns that are a type of real nouns. These nouns name one instance of those items that make up the set. For example: pearl - pearl, potato - potato, sand - grain of sand, pea - pea, snow - snowflake, straw - straw.

5. According to the type of objects designated, nouns are divided into two categories:

animated nouns that name objects of wildlife, the question is asked to them who?: father, mother, nightingale, cat, fly, worm;

inanimate nouns that name objects of inanimate nature, the question is asked to them what?: country, rock, laugh, snow, window.

Note. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between animate and inanimate nouns.

1) Animated are mainly masculine and feminine nouns. Animated nouns neuter very little ( child, animal, face in the meaning of "man" mammal, insect, monster, creature meaning "living organism" monster).

2) Animate and inanimate nouns have features in declension:

for animate nouns in the plural, the form of the accusative case coincides with the form of the genitive case (for animate masculine nouns of the 2nd declension and in the singular): V.p. pl. = R.p. plural

Wed: mother - I see mothers(pl. v.p.), no mothers(pl. R.p.); father - see fathers(pl. v.p.), no fathers(pl. R.p.); see father(singular VP), no father(singular R.p.);

for inanimate nouns in the plural, the form of the accusative case coincides with the form of the nominative case (for masculine nouns of the 2nd declension and in the singular, the form of the accusative case coincides with the form of the nominative case): V.p. plural = I.p. plural

Wed: country - see countries(pl. v.p.), there are countries(pl. I.p.); stone - see stones(pl. v.p.), there are stones here(pl. I.p.); I see a stone(singular VP), there is a stone here(singular I.p.).

3) The division of nouns into animate and inanimate does not always coincide with the scientific idea of animate and inanimate nature. For example, the noun regiment denotes a collection of people, but it is an inanimate noun (V.p. = I.p.: I see a regiment - there is a regiment here). The same can be observed in the example of the noun microbe. From the point of view of biology, this is part of wildlife, but the noun microbe is inanimate (V.p. = I.p.: I see a microbe - there is a microbe here). The nouns dead and corpse are synonymous, but the noun dead is animate (V.p. = R.p.: I see a dead man - there is no dead man), and the noun corpse is inanimate (V.p. = I.p.: I see a corpse - there is a corpse here).

Additionally:

Instruction

In Russian grammar, the category of animation does not always coincide with scientific ideas about living things. There are many nouns that are considered inanimate in the language, but refer to phenomena inherent in living nature, and sometimes vice versa.

Animate nouns give the name to living beings that tend to move: for example, walk, run, jump. When used in speech, there are rarely neuter nouns that are animate (they include the words “monster”, “monster”, “animal”, “insect”, “child”). Animated nouns are usually either feminine or masculine.

In difficult cases, to distinguish whether nouns are animate or inanimate, the grammatical forms expressed in them help.

Animation or inanimateness is recognized by a certain coincidence of the forms of the accusative case of the noun. In the plural, word forms coinciding with the genitive case speak of animation (“draw bears, butterflies”), and in the nominative - inanimateness (“watch cartoons, albums”). Similar coincidences can be observed in adjectives that are consistent with masculine nouns (“dear guest” - animated; “lay a carpet” - inanimate).

Animation will be indicated to you by constructions of nouns with a preposition with separate verbs denoting an action - a transition to a different position: the endings of the nominative and accusative cases in the plural will be the same (“enroll in students”, “get into artists”).

Note that the categories of animate or inanimate tend to fluctuate at times. According to established modern standards of the Russian language, nouns that name microorganisms, and some other names are defined as inanimate (“describe bacteria”, but not “bacteria”; “consider larvae”, but not “larvae”). An obsolete form of such nouns, speaking of animation, can be found in scientific literature. The proper meaning of the names of fish allows us to consider them animated, but these words, which have become the names of dishes, very often in use acquire the same forms of nominative and accusative cases, which is an indicator of inanimateness (for example, “catch crayfish” (animate) - “cook smoked crayfish” (unsouled.)). "Neptune", "Mars", "Pluto" are nouns that can be animate (the names of the Gods) and inanimate (the names of the planets).

The words "humanity", "students", which have the meaning of the collection of animate objects, are inanimate in grammar. And when declining such words as “dead man”, “dead man”, “queen” (a piece in chess), “jack” (the name of one of the cards), you can find the grammatical category of animation. One can say about the attitude towards animation by considering the names of some fantastic creatures, which include "

Nouns have a constant morphological sign of animation.

The sign of animateness of nouns is closely connected with the concept of living / inanimate. Nevertheless, animation is not a rank in meaning, but a proper morphological feature.

All morphological features are characterized by the fact that they have a typified formal expression - they are expressed by formative morphemes (endings or formative suffixes - see morphemic). Morphological features of words can be expressed

1) intra-word - formative morphemes of the word itself ( table-Ø - tables),

2) extra-verbal - formative morphemes of agreed words ( new coat - new coats),

Both of these means of expression can be presented together. In this case, one grammatical meaning is expressed several times in a sentence - both intra-verbally and extra-verbally ( new table-Ø - new tables).

Animation as a morphological feature also has formal means of expression. Firstly, animateness / inanimateness is expressed by the endings of the noun itself:

1) animated nouns have the same plural endings. numbers V. p. and R. p., and for nouns husband. genus, this also applies to units. number;

2) inanimate nouns have the same plural endings. numbers V. p. and I. p., and for nouns husband. genus, this also applies to units. number.

Nouns are presented in Russian with hesitation in animation: their V. p. can coincide with both I. p. and R. p., for example, (I see) micro-s / micro-s, describe character-i / character-s, creatures-o / creatures-Ø;

Feminine and neuter nouns that have only singular forms do not formally express animation ( youth, students), they are not formally characterized by animation.

Animation has extraverbal expression: the ending of an adjective or participle agreed with the noun in V. p. differs depending on the animateness or inanimateness of the noun, cf .: (I see) new students, but new tables.

The out-of-word expression of the animation of nouns is more universal than the intra-verbal one: it expresses animation even if the noun is immutable: (I see) beautiful madam, but nice coat.

The animacy of most nouns reflects a certain state of affairs in extralinguistic reality: animate nouns are mainly called living beings, and inanimate - inanimate objects, however, there are cases of violation of this pattern:

Animation, as already mentioned, is a constant feature of a noun. In doing so, it must be borne in mind that different meanings one word can be differently designed according to animation, for example: I see genius(person) - appreciate genius-Ø (mind).

Gender as a morphological feature of a noun

Nouns have a constant morphological gender and are masculine, feminine or neuter.

The main expression of the morphological gender is extra-verbal - the endings of adjectives consistent with the noun, participles in the position of the definition and words with a non-permanent sign of the gender in the position of the predicate, primarily the verb in the past tense or conditional mood, as well as short adjective or sacraments.

The masculine, feminine and neuter gender includes words with the following compatibility:

Male

new student has arrived-Ø

Female

a new student has arrived

Average

big window open

Some nouns ending in - a, denoting signs, properties of persons, in I. p. have a double characterization by gender, depending on the sex of the designated person:

your-Ø the ignoramus has come-Ø,

your-I'm ignorant came-a.

Such nouns are general kind.

There are nouns in Russian that designate the name of a person by profession, which, when designating a male person, act as masculine words, that is, they attach agreed words with masculine endings; when they denote a female person, the attribute is used in the masculine gender, and the predicate is used in the feminine gender (mainly in colloquial speech):

the new doctor has arrived-Ø (male),

new doctor came(woman).

These words are “candidates” for a common gender, their gender is sometimes called transitional to a common one, but in dictionaries they are characterized as masculine words.

In Russian, there are about 150 words with a hesitation in gender, for example: coffee- masculine / neuter gender, shampoo- masculine / feminine.

Plural only nouns ( cream, scissors) do not belong to any of the genders, since in the plural formal differences between nouns of different genders are not expressed (cf .: desks - tables).

Thus, the main expression of the gender is extra-verbal. Intra-word gender is consistently expressed only for nouns - substantiated adjectives and participles: watch, ice cream, canteen: in the singular forms, these words have endings that unambiguously indicate their generic affiliation. For masculine II declension and III declension nouns female the whole system of their endings is specific, but as for the endings of individual case forms, they may not be indicative, cf. table-Ø - night-Ø.

For all inanimate nouns (and there are about 80% of such nouns in the language), the gender is conditional, in no way connected with extralinguistic reality.

Among animate nouns - the names of persons or animals, the gender is often associated with the gender of the designated creature, cf .: mom - dad, son - daughter, cow - bull. However, it is necessary to understand the difference between the grammatical attribute of gender and the non-grammatical attribute of gender. So, in Russian there are animate nouns of the middle gender ( child, animal), in nouns - the names of animals, male and female individuals are often called the same ( dragonfly, crocodile), among the words - names of persons, there is also not always a correspondence between gender and gender. Yes, the word individual feminine, although it can denote both a woman and a man (see, for example, A. S. Pushkin: Someone wrote to him from Moscow that a famous person should soon enter into a legal marriage with a young and beautiful girl.).

A certain difficulty is the definition of the genus compound words(abbreviations) and indeclinable nouns. They have the following rules.

Generic characteristic abbreviations depends on what type the given compound word belongs to.

The genus of abbreviations formed by adding the initial parts ( supply manager), the initial part of the first word with the uncontracted second ( savings bank) and the beginning of the first word with the beginning and/or end of the second ( trade mission → trade mission), is determined by the generic affiliation of the main word in the original phrase: good organizational work, Russian trade mission, new savings bank.

A genus of abbreviations consisting of initial sounds ( GUM) or letters ( Moscow State University), as well as abbreviations of a mixed type, in which the initial part of the first word is connected with the first letters or sounds of other words ( head office), is ambiguous. Initially, they also acquire the gender of the main word in the original phrase, for example, Bratsk HPP. However, in the process of use, the original generic characteristic is consistently preserved only by abbreviations from the first letters of the original phrase. Abbreviations, consisting of the first sounds, behave differently. Some of them acquire a generic characteristic in accordance with appearance the words. Yes, the words BAM, university, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NEP, registry office and some others became masculine words and acquired the ability to decline according to the second declension, like nouns of the type house. Other abbreviations ending in a consonant with a core word of the middle and feminine gender may have fluctuations: they can have a generic characteristic in accordance with the gender of the main word and at the same time not be inclined ( in our ZhEK) or, leaning, used as masculine words ( in our Housing Office). Abbreviations ending in a vowel are not inflected and are predominantly neuter ( our RONO - district department of public education).

Indeclinable nouns, getting into the Russian language or being formed in it, should acquire a generic characteristic, which will manifest itself only when choosing adjectives, participles and verbs that agree with the noun.

There are the following patterns in the choice of generic characteristics by such nouns: the gender depends either on the meaning of the word, or on the gender of another Russian word, which is considered as a synonym or as a generic name for this unchangeable word. For different groups nouns leading are different criteria.

If a noun denotes an object, then it usually acquires the characteristics of a neutral gender: coat, muffler, subway. However, feminine avenue(because the outside), kohlrabi(because it cabbage), coffee- with hesitation - masculine / neuter, masculine - penalty, euro.

If a noun denotes an animal, then it usually refers to the masculine gender: chimpanzee, cockatoo. Exceptions: iwashi, tsetse- feminine gender (because herring, fly).

If a noun denotes a person, then its gender depends on the gender of this person: words monsieur, couturier masculine, as they denote men; the words madam, mademoiselle feminine, because they denote women, and the words vis-a-vis, incognito common gender, as they can denote both men and women.

If the noun means geographical feature, then its gender is determined by the gender of the Russian word, which denotes the type of object: Tbilisi masculine, because city(masculine), Mississippi feminine, because river, Lesotho neuter, as it state. All of the above applies only to indeclinable words, therefore Moscow- a noun is not masculine, but feminine, although it is a city, since it is changeable.

Andrei NARUSHEVICH,
Taganrog

A few questions about the animate/inanimate category

The category of animate/inanimate nouns is little mentioned in school textbooks of the Russian language, but meanwhile it is one of the most interesting linguistic phenomena. Let's try to answer some questions that arise when considering this category.

What is "animate" and "inanimate" object?

It is known that the assignment of nouns to animate or inanimate is associated with the division of the surrounding world by a person into living and inanimate. However, V.V. Vinogradov noted the "mythology" of the terms "animate / inanimate", since textbook examples ( plant, deceased, doll, people and etc . ) demonstrate the discrepancy between the objective status of the subject and its comprehension in the language. There is an opinion that animate in grammar means “active” objects identified with a person, which are opposed to “inactive” and, therefore, inanimate objects 1 . At the same time, the attribute "activity/inactivity" does not fully explain why the words dead man, deceased belong to the animate, and people, crowd, flock- to inanimate nouns. Apparently, the category of animateness/inanimateness reflects everyday ideas about the living and the inanimate, i.e. a subjective assessment by a person of objects of reality, which does not always coincide with the scientific picture of the world.

Of course, the “standard” of a living being for a person has always been a person himself. Any language keeps "petrified" metaphors showing that people from ancient times saw the world as anthropomorphic, described it in their own image and likeness: the sun came out, the river runs, the leg of the chair, the spout of the kettle and so on . Let us recall at least anthropomorphic gods or characters of lower mythology. At the same time, life forms different from humans: some invertebrates, microorganisms, etc. - are often ambiguously evaluated by ordinary native speakers. For example, as the survey of informants showed, to nouns sea anemone, amoeba, ciliate, polyp, microbe, virus question asked regularly what? Obviously, in addition to signs of visible activity (movement, development, reproduction, etc.), the ordinary concept of a living being (“animate” object) also includes a sign of similarity to a person.

How is the animateness/inanimateness of a noun determined?

Traditionally, as a grammatical indicator of animation, the coincidence of the form of the accusative and genitive singular and plural for masculine nouns (I see a person, a deer, friends, bears) and only in the plural of feminine and neuter nouns (I see women, animals). Accordingly, grammatical inanimateness is manifested in the coincidence of the accusative and nominative cases (I see a house, tables, streets, fields).

It should be noted that the grammatical opposition of nouns by animateness/inanimateness is expressed not only in the form of a specific case: the difference in the forms of nouns in the accusative case leads to a difference and opposition of paradigms in general. For masculine nouns, on the basis of animateness/inanimateness, singular and plural paradigms are distinguished, and for feminine and neuter nouns, only plural paradigms, that is, each of the animate/inanimate categories has its own declension paradigm.

There is an opinion that the main means of expressing the animateness / inanimateness of a noun is the form of the accusative case of the agreed definition: “It is by the form of the agreed definition in the accusative case that the animateness or inanimateness of the noun in the linguistic sense of the word is determined” 2 . Obviously, this provision requires clarification: the form of the adjectival word should be considered as the main means of expressing animateness/inanimateness only in relation to the use of invariable words: see beautiful cockatoo(V. = R.); see beautiful coat(V. = I.). In other cases, the form of the adjectival word duplicates the meanings of case, number, gender and animateness/inanimateness of the main word - the noun.

The coincidence of case forms (V. = I. or V. = R.) in the declension of allied words of the adjective structure (in subordinate clause): These were books, which I knew(V. = I.); These were writers, which I knew(B. = R.).

Feminine and neuter nouns, which appear only in the singular form (singularia tantum), do not have a grammatical indicator of animation / inanimateness, since these words have an independent form of the accusative case, which does not coincide with either the nominative or the genitive: catch swordfish, study cybernetics etc. Thus, grammatically, the animateness/inanimateness of these nouns is not determined.

What is the fluctuating grammatical indicator of animateness/inanimateness?

Let's look at a few examples: And from now on the embryo is called fruit(I. Akimushkin) - I saw in a flask embryo, swirling like a French horn(Yu. Arabov); science microbiology studies various bacteria and viruses(N. Goldin) - Bacteria can be identified by morphological properties(A. Bykov); Marrying a woman blows away with myself their dolls (I. Solomonik) - Before going to bed, you played again in my office. Feeding dolls (L. Panteleev). As you can see, the same words behave either as animate or as inanimate.

Variative forms of the accusative case of nouns germ, embryo, microbe, bacterium etc. are explained by the ambiguity of the assessment of the corresponding objects by the speakers. Usually these forms of life are inaccessible to observation, which causes the fluctuation of native speakers in attributing these objects to living or non-living.

Dolls are involved in the game (as well as magical) human activities. In children's games, dolls function like living beings. Dolls are bathed, combed, put to bed, that is, actions are performed with them, which in other conditions are aimed only at living beings. Game activity creates conditions for understanding dolls as objects that are functionally similar to the living (functionally animated). At the same time, dolls remain inanimate objects. The combination of signs of living and inanimate causes fluctuations in the grammatical indicator of animation / inanimateness. Similar features are revealed by some names of game pieces: queen, ace, pawn and etc.: I took from the table, as I remember now, ace of hearts and threw it up(M. Lermontov) - By placing the cards take all the aces lying on top of the packs(Z. Ivanova).

Some animals have long been regarded primarily as food (cf. modern word seafood). For example, lobsters, oysters, lobsters, as V.A. Itskovich, “are not found in Central Russia in a living form and became known first as exotic dishes and only later as living beings” 2 . Apparently, nouns oyster, squid, lobster and others were originally declined only according to the inanimate type, the appearance of the accusative form, coinciding with the genitive form, is associated with the development of the meaning ‘ creature', more recent than 'food': Boil squids, cut into noodles(N. Golosova) - Squids are boiled in salt water(N. Akimova); Local fishermen brought fish in the city: in spring - small anchovy, in summer - ugly flounder, in autumn - mackerel, fat mullet and oysters (A. Kuprin) - And are you eat oysters? (A. Chekhov) Interestingly, in the meaning of ‘food’, not only the names of exotic animals acquire grammatical inanimateness: fatty herring Good soak, cut into fillets(M. Peterson); Processed pike perch cut into pieces(V.Turygin).

Thus, the fluctuation of the grammatical indicator of animateness/inanimateness is caused by the peculiarities of semantics, as well as the ambiguity of assessing the subject as living or inanimate.

Why nouns dead man and dead person animated?

Human understanding of living nature is inextricably linked with the concept of death. ‘Dead’ is always ‘being alive’, having previously possessed life. In addition, it is no coincidence that folklore is replete with stories about the living dead. Until now, you can find echoes of the ideas of our distant ancestors that some special form of life is inherent in the dead, as if dead man able to hear, think, remember.

Nouns dead person, deceased, departed and others denote dead people, i.e. possess the attribute ‘human’ – the most important for the meaning of animation. And here is the word dead body means ‘the body of a dead organism’, i.e. only the material shell (cf. expressions corpses of the dead, corpses of the dead). Apparently, this semantic difference explains the grammatical animation of the names of the dead and the inanimateness of the word corpse: How strong are the stones all in their callings, - When the dead covered watch over (K.Sluchevsky); BUT convene I am the ones I work for the dead Orthodox... - Cross yourself! call the dead for housewarming(A. Pushkin); Nastya only once, long before the war, had to see a drowned man (V.Rasputin); Teamsters throwing corpses on a sled with a wooden clatter(A. Solzhenitsyn).

Why words people, crowd, flock inanimate?

The listed words denote a certain set of living objects - people or animals. This set is understood as a single whole - a set of living beings, and this set is not equal to the simple sum of its components. For example, the attribute "multiple", expressing the idea of quantity in the concept of "people", in the concept of "people" is combined with the idea of quality - "the totality of people in their specific interactions". In this way, common feature of the words of this group - 'totality' - turns out to be the leading one and forms the meaning of inanimateness. V.G. Gak connects the nouns under consideration with the category of a collective (quasi-animate) object: “Between animate and inanimate objects there is an intermediate group of collective objects consisting of animate units. Words denoting such objects ... can be conditionally called quasi-animate” 4 . The grammatical generalization of semantics is expressed in the morphological indicator of inanimateness (V. = I.): I see crowds, nations, flocks, herds etc.

Why are nouns denoting plants inanimate?

In the language picture plant world, which are qualitatively different life form than animals and humans are not perceived as living organisms. The ability to move independently has long been recognized as one of the characteristic features of the living. As Aristotle pointed out, “the beginning of movement arises in us from ourselves, even if nothing has set us in motion from outside. We do not see anything like this in inanimate [bodies], but they are always set in motion by something external, and a living being, as we say, moves itself” 5 . The inability of plant organisms to move independently, the lack of visible motor activity and a number of other signs lead to the fact that in the mind of a person, plants, together with objects of inorganic nature, constitute an immovable, static part of the world. This is indicated by V.A. Itskovich: "... a living object is understood as an object capable of independent movement, so that plants are inanimate objects" 6 . Thus, the predominance of signs of the inanimate in everyday concepts of plants, as well as the nature labor activity man, who has long been widely using plants for a variety of purposes, led to the fact that plants in most cases are perceived as inanimate objects.

How does the meaning of animate/inanimate manifest itself?

The attribute ‘living’ (‘non-living’) can be manifested not only in the meanings of nouns, but also in the meanings of indicative words. Indeed, the analysis showed that not only nouns, but also verbs and adjectives have the meaning of animateness/inanimateness in the language. This is manifested in the fact that verbs and adjectives can denote signs of objects that characterize these objects as living or inanimate. For example, the meaning of the verb read indicates that the action is performed by a person (person) and is directed to an inanimate object: read a book, newspaper, ad etc.

The existence of such semantic connections made it possible to build a classification of Russian verbs according to the presence in their meanings of an indication of the animateness / inanimateness of the subject and object of the action. This classification was developed by Prof. L.D. Chesnokova 7 . So, all the verbs of the Russian language can be divided into the following groups:

1) animated-marked - denote actions performed by living beings: breathe, dream, sleep and etc;
2) inanimate-marked - denote actions performed by inanimate objects: burn, crumble, evaporate and etc . ;
3) neutral - denote actions common to living and inanimate objects: stand, lie, fall and etc .

A similar division is observed among adjectives:

1) animated-marked adjectives denote signs of living beings: external signs, features of temperament, volitional qualities, emotional, intellectual and physical properties and etc.: lean, long-legged, lop-eared, phlegmatic, quick-tempered, kind, evil, intelligent, persistent, blind, talented etc.;
2) inanimate-marked adjectives denote signs of inanimate objects (phenomena) - spatial and temporal qualities and relationships, the properties and qualities of things perceived by the senses, signs in relation to the material of manufacture, etc.: liquid, rare, deep, spicy, sour, bitter, strong, thick, iron, glassy, woody, marshy etc.;
3) neutral adjectives denote features that can be attributed to both living beings and inanimate objects - the most common spatial characteristics, color characteristics, evaluative characteristics, belonging, etc.: left, right, tall, small, heavy, white, red, good, mother's.

Thus, the animate/inanimate meaning of a noun is usually supported by animate- or inanimate-marked context elements. Otherwise, update figurative meanings, which provides semantic agreement of words.

Yes, for animate nouns in combination with inanimate-marked verbs, the metonymic transfer ‘work – author’ is most typical: Then the worker started read Brockhaus (M. Bulgakov); But anyway Doderlein necessary view... Here it is - Doderlein. "Operational Obstetrics"(M. Bulgakov).

For inanimate nouns, names can be transferred from inanimate objects to living ones: hungry bursa prowled through the streets of Kyiv and forced everyone to be careful(N. Gogol); Me saw off all warm and loving camera in full force, without party distinctions(E. Ginzburg); Prison doesn't like brave men(V.Shalamov). There are also many cases of occasional metonymic transfer affecting the semantics of the animate/inanimate substantive: - Fast! To the phone! A tube vibrated, fluttered, choked with anxiety, did not dare to speak fatal question. Only repeated with an interrogative intonation: “Is that you? It's you?"(E. Ginzburg); Once in the hospital I heard: “From the seventh ward nasal furuncle discharged» (V. Levy).

The semantic discrepancy in the aspect of animateness/inanimateness can be overcome due to the metaphorical transfer of the meaning of the noun. Combinations of inanimate nouns with animate-marked words can serve as an example, creating an artistic device of personification (personification): sitting on the forehead of a short man, Pimple with envy glanced on the foreheads of tall people and thought: “I wish I were in such a position!”(F.Krivin).

So, let's sum up. Animate and inanimate nouns designate not so much living and inanimate objects as objects, understood as both living and non-living. In addition, between the members of the opposition ‘thinkable as living / thinkable as inanimate’, there are a number of intermediate formations that combine the signs of the living and the inanimate, the presence of which is due to the associative mechanisms of thinking and other features of human mental activity, for example:

1) conceivable as having been alive ( dead person, deceased, departed and etc.);
2) mentally represented alive ( mermaid, goblin, cyborg and etc.);
3) conceivable as a semblance of a living ( doll, baby doll, jack, queen and etc.);
4) conceivable as a set of living things ( people, crowd, flock, herd and etc.).

Thus, the category of animate/inanimate nouns, like some other linguistic phenomena, reflects the anthropocentric setting of human thinking, and the discrepancy between the linguistic picture of the world and scientific understanding is another manifestation of the subjective factor in the language.

1 Stepanov Y.S.. Fundamentals of general linguistics. M., 1975. S. 130.

2 Miloslavsky I.G. Morphological categories of the modern Russian language. M.: Nauka, 1981. S. 54.

3 Itskovich V.A.. Animate and inanimate nouns in the modern Russian language (norm and tendency) // Questions of Linguistics. 1980, No. 4. S. 85.

4 Gak V.G. Verbal compatibility and its reflection in the dictionaries of verb control // Lexicology and lexicography / Pod. ed. V.V. Morkovkin. M.: Russk. yaz., 1972. S. 68.

5 Aristotle. Physics // Works in 4 vols. M., 1981. T. 3. S. 226.

6 Itskovich V.A.. Animate and inanimate nouns in the modern Russian language (norm and tendency) // Questions of Linguistics. 1980, No. 4. S. 96.

7 Chesnokova L.D.. Pronouns who, what and the semantics of animation - inanimateness in the modern Russian language // Russian Linguistics. Kyiv: Higher. school, 1987. Issue. 14. P. 69–75.

The listed words denote a certain set of living objects - people or animals. This set is understood as a single whole - a set of living beings, and this set is not equal to the simple sum of its components. For example, the attribute "multiple", expressing the idea of quantity in the concept of "people", in the concept of "people" is combined with the idea of quality - "the totality of people in their specific interactions". Thus, the common feature of the words of this group - 'collection' - turns out to be the leading one and forms the meaning of inanimateness. V.G. Gak connects the nouns under consideration with the category of a collective (quasi-animate) object: “Between animate and inanimate objects there is an intermediate group of collective objects consisting of animate units. Words denoting such objects ... can be conditionally called quasi-animate” 4 . The grammatical generalization of semantics is expressed in the morphological indicator of inanimateness (V. = I.): I see crowds, nations, flocks, herds etc.

Why are nouns denoting plants inanimate?

In the linguistic picture of the world, plants, which are a qualitatively different form of life than animals and humans, are not perceived as living organisms. The ability to move independently has long been recognized as one of the characteristic features of the living. As Aristotle pointed out, “the beginning of movement arises in us from ourselves, even if nothing has set us in motion from outside. We do not see anything like this in inanimate [bodies], but they are always set in motion by something external, and a living being, as we say, moves itself” 5 . The inability of plant organisms to move independently, the lack of visible motor activity and a number of other signs lead to the fact that in the mind of a person, plants, together with objects of inorganic nature, constitute an immovable, static part of the world. This is indicated by V.A. Itskovich: "... a living object is understood as an object capable of independent movement, so that plants are inanimate objects" 6 . Thus, the predominance of signs of the inanimate in everyday concepts of plants, as well as the nature of the labor activity of a person who has long widely used plants for various purposes, led to the fact that plants in most cases are perceived as inanimate objects.

How does the meaning of animate/inanimate manifest itself?

1) animated-marked - denote actions performed by living beings: breathe, dream, sleep and etc; 2) inanimate-marked - denote actions performed by inanimate objects: burn, crumble, evaporate and etc . ; 3) neutral - denote actions common to living and inanimate objects: stand, lie, fall and etc .

A similar division is observed among adjectives:

1) animate-marked adjectives denote signs of living beings: external signs, temperament, volitional qualities, emotional, intellectual and physical properties, etc.: lean, long-legged, lop-eared, phlegmatic, quick-tempered, kind, evil, intelligent, persistent, blind, talented etc.; 2) inanimate-marked adjectives denote signs of inanimate objects (phenomena) - spatial and temporal qualities and relationships, the properties and qualities of things perceived by the senses, signs in relation to the material of manufacture, etc.: liquid, rare, deep, spicy, sour, bitter, strong, thick, iron, glassy, woody, marshy etc.; 3) neutral adjectives denote features that can be attributed to both living beings and inanimate objects - the most common spatial characteristics, color characteristic, estimated characteristic, affiliation, etc.: left, right, tall, small, heavy, white, red, good, mother's.

Thus, the animate/inanimate meaning of a noun is usually supported by animate- or inanimate-marked context elements. Otherwise, figurative meanings are updated, which ensures the semantic agreement of words.

So, for animate nouns in combination with inanimate-marked verbs, the metonymic transfer ‘work - author’ is most typical: Then the worker started read Brockhaus (M. Bulgakov); But anyway Doderlein necessary view ... Here it is - Doderlein. "Operational Obstetrics"(M. Bulgakov).

For inanimate nouns, names can be transferred from inanimate objects to living ones: hungry bursa prowled through the streets of Kyiv and forced everyone to be careful(N. Gogol); Mesaw off all warm and loving camera in full force, without party distinctions (E. Ginzburg); Prison doesn't like brave men (V.Shalamov). There are also many cases of occasional metonymic transfer affecting the semantics of the animate/inanimate substantive: - Fast! To the phone! A tube vibrated, fluttered, choked with anxiety , did not dare to speak fatal question. Only repeated with an interrogative intonation: “Is that you? It's you?" (E. Ginzburg); Once in the hospital I heard: “From the seventh ward nasal furuncle discharged » (V. Levy).

The semantic discrepancy in the aspect of animateness/inanimateness can be overcome due to the metaphorical transfer of the meaning of the noun. Combinations of inanimate nouns with animate-marked words can serve as an example, creating an artistic device of personification (personification): sitting on the forehead of a short man, Pimple with envy glanced on the foreheads of tall people and thought : “I wish I were in such a position!”(F.Krivin).

1) conceivable as having been alive ( dead person, deceased, departed and etc.); 2) mentally represented alive ( mermaid, goblin, cyborg and etc.); 3) conceivable as a semblance of a living ( doll, baby doll, jack, queen and etc.); 4) conceivable as a set of living things ( people, crowd, flock, herd and etc.).