Abstract noun and its role in the language

By meaning and grammatical features, concrete, abstract, real and collective nouns are distinguished. Such a division is not entirely accurate, since both material and collective, together with the concrete, are opposed to the abstract, primarily in terms of the ability to display materially represented objects, their totality, substances - to abstract concepts, properties, states. Therefore, at the first stage of division, it is logical to oppose concrete and abstract nouns, and at the second stage, in the composition of concrete ones, to single out actually concrete, material and collective ones. Let's take a look at each category.

Properly specific nouns . To actually specific should include nouns, naming materially represented objects, limited in space (sometimes in time). The core of this group is countable nouns. Their grammatical characteristics are as follows: the numerical paradigm of most words ( notebook - notebooks, owner - owners), compatibility with cardinal numbers ( two bulbs, ten students, ninety-nine pages). The singular number in them, as a rule, denotes one object, the plural - two or more objects. The exception is when such nouns are used in generalizing meanings ( Dog is man's best friend). On the periphery of this group, nouns are placed, naming units of space, time, etc. ( minute, hour, day, meter , kilometer, ampere, kilowatt etc.).

Real nouns . Real nouns denote substances that are homogeneous in composition, measurable, but not countable. They can be divided into parts, each of which has the properties of the whole. These are the names of food and chemical products, minerals, plants, tissues, waste products, medicines, etc. ( soup, oil, gold, silk, cement, millet, oil, cleaning, tea, cream etc.).

Unlike actual concrete nouns, real nouns, as a rule, are used in one number, more often - only the singular ( milk, vodka, copper etc.), less often - only in the plural ( trimmings, whitewash etc.). They do not combine with integer cardinal numbers, but since they can be measured, they are combined with nouns that name units of measure, and fractional numbers: a glass of tea, a liter of milk, a ton of gasoline, a gram of platinum etc. In this case, real nouns are used in the form of gender. n. pl. hours; compare: kilogram of raspberries, but: kilogram of peaches; a lot of currants but: a lot of cucumbers.

Real nouns in some cases may have a full number paradigm; plural form. hours are used when they designate 1) species, varieties, brands: essential oils, Bulgarian tobaccos, Crimean wines, mineral waters, alloyed steels, woolen fabrics; 2) large spaces, masses of something: the waters of the Dnieper, the snows of the Caucasus, the ice of the Arctic, the sands of the desert etc.

Collective nouns . Collective nouns denote a collection of persons, living beings or objects in the form of a whole, for example: peasantry, students, headman, children, foliage.

From the point of view of morphemic structure, collective nouns are most often represented by words with suffixes -stv-(nobility, bosses, teachers), -est-(merchants, humanity), -from-(poor), -in-(foliage), -hedgehog-(the youth), -ur-(equipment, agents), -Nick-(spruce forest), -j-(crow, rag, officer), -n-(soldier, children), -thief- (kids).

A.A. Reformed and other linguists distinguish as collective nouns only those nouns that have a triple correlative series of single-root words, consisting of units. hours and more h. actually specific nouns and a collective noun formed from them [Reformatsky A.A. Number and Grammar // Issues of Grammar. - M., 1960. - S. 393-394].

In this case, semantic correlation is most often maintained, and the meaning of a collective noun additionally includes only the seme of the totality, associations of persons, living beings, objects, for example: peasant - peasants - peasantry. But in some cases there is a semantic increment, for example: dean's office - this is not a set of deans, but the dean and dean's employees (deputies, secretaries, etc.).

A number of linguists note that collective nouns, through their formal (word-building) features, “delimit” the classes of people, animals, plants and things, which has historical roots (V.I. Degtyarev, D.I. Rudenko, etc.).

Suffixes - j(o)-, -nya- in words, officers, crows, rags, soldiers, conveying negative characteristics, they seem to destroy the integrity of the units, likening them to a continuous mass.

Collective nouns can only convey the evaluation 'many': foliage, cherry.

The assessment ‘important’ is expressed by collective nouns with suffixes - stem-: students, officers.

"Type names kids can, without being perceived as neutral, be used with almost equal success in both “positive” and “negative” (however, moderately negative) contexts ( I love kids. Annoying kids crowded in the yard) [Rudenko D.I. Name in the paradigms of the philosophy of language. - Kharkov: Osnova, 1990. - S. 177-178].

Collective nouns, used in the form of a single number, are not subject to counting, therefore they cannot carry quantitative determinants expressed in whole numbers.

The point of view presented above gives a narrow understanding of the term "collective nouns". In the broadest sense of this term, in addition to those listed, they include nouns in which collectiveness is presented as a meaning that has not received an appropriate grammatical formulation. Such nouns are not included in the tripartite series; they may have a numerical paradigm and may be defined by numerals. These include:

1) nouns singular. hours (mostly female, less often - male and cf.), expressing collectiveness directly by lexical meaning ( crowd, flock, game, fraction, rags, greens, evil spirits, dishes, trifles, junk, army, detachment, regiment, garbage etc.). There are no words of the same root naming individual representatives of this group;

2) nouns with a collective meaning, having the form only plural. hours: finance, cereal etc.;

3) some nouns with a prefix co-: constellation(as a collection of stars), meeting(meaning ‘collection’), inflorescence etc.

Some linguists do not single out collective nouns as a lexical and grammatical category in the same row with real, abstract nouns: “... collectiveness in Russian refers to grammatical phenomena that are not on a par with lexical and morphological groupings of words” [Grammatical categories of nouns in modern Russian language: Guidelines for students of the second year of philological faculties / Compiled by A.A. Kolesnikov. - Odessa, 1982. - S. 24]. Therefore, the collection is considered by A.A. Kolesnikov not as a lexical and morphological category, but as the meaning of a number.

While agreeing with the characterization of the semantic specificity of these nouns in relation to the category of number, we at the same time see the one-sidedness of this point of view, primarily in the incomplete coverage and consideration of all the features that make up the content of the lexico-semantic category, in hypertrophied attention to one side of this phenomenon - the method number expressions. Moreover, we see contradictions in this as well.

According to this point of view, a characteristic difference between the forms of collectiveness and the lexico-morphological categories of nouns is the inability for collective nouns to be used in the form of plurals. h. At the same time, among the collective, the author names a noun agents, included in the "ternary opposition of paradigms of the grammatical category of number": agent - agents - agency[WITH. 22–23]. We will add nouns to them dean's office, rector's office, spruce forest and under. The specificity of this group of collective nouns lies in the possibility of forming plural forms in them. h. ( agents of the two countries, deans of the philological and Romano-Germanic faculties).

Thus, the argument in favor of not singling out collective nouns in the lexico-semantic category of nouns looks, in our opinion, unconvincing.

Abstract (abstract) nouns . Actually concrete, real and collective nouns are included in one large group of concrete. On the ontological plane, all of them usually denote objects that are represented materially, “physically”, that have an extension, that is, limited in space. They are opposed to abstract nouns.

Abstract nouns denote objectified qualities, properties, actions, for example: joy, creativity, cheapness, vegetation, diligence etc. Most of these nouns are motivated by adjectives and verbs, less often by nouns. Grammatical features of abstract nouns: they are used in the form of only one number (mostly singular); are not determined by numerals (do not combine with them).

The exceptions are cases of concretization of abstract nouns and the emergence of the plural form. h. in occasional use of the word; compare: beauty - the beauties of Crimea, joy - small joys.

In addition to the lexico-grammatical categories listed above, some linguists distinguish the category of singular nouns, or singulatives (from lat. singularis- separate). These include: a) proper names that name objects that exist in one copy or in several, assigned to an individual on the basis of his naming rights, for example: Simferopol, Yalta, Dnieper, Volga, Andrey, Natalia and etc.; b) common nouns that name individual objects that are isolated from the totality and all together make it up. They have their own singularity suffixes - in-, -ink-: zest, icicle, straw, pearl, mote, grape, speck of dust. As a rule, they are formed from real nouns, less often from collective nouns (in terms of meaning), they have lexical and grammatical features of specific nouns proper (limited in space; they name specific objects that are counted; they have a numerical paradigm; they can be determined by numerals) and only in within the category of actually specific nouns can be distinguished, taking into account the specifics of the lexical meaning, into a special subgroup.

Some linguists call another category - quality nouns. M.F. Lukin refers to them as follows: activist, dissolute, cheerleader, rebel, grandee, bully, book lover, coquette, moralist, mocker, paradox, parody, sybarite, cynic, exploiter, sneak, Englishman, German, Frenchman, Russian, beauty, clever woman and others. Their lexical feature is recognized as "the predominance of any qualitative features in them." The full expression of qualitative features can be represented by the form "most (least) + noun": most moralist, least selfish[Lukin M.F. Morphology of the modern Russian language. - M.: Enlightenment, 1973. - S. 27].

In our opinion, the so-called "qualitative nouns" have all the features of proper concrete and, on this basis, should be included in this category, and only in their composition, taking into account the specifics of the lexical meaning, can they be considered as a special subclass of proper concrete.

Thus, nouns according to the nature of the reflection of objective reality and the presence of certain grammatical features can be divided into two large groups - concrete and abstract; in the composition of concrete as independent lexico-grammatical categories, actually concrete, real and collective are distinguished.

In language, as in real life, along with clearly opposed phenomena, there are intermediate ones that combine the properties of two adjacent ones. This provision is also very important for understanding the lexical and grammatical categories of nouns.

We can distinguish words that combine some features of two categories:

a) abstract and proper concrete ( idea, thought, hike, journey and under. denote abstract concepts, but at the same time have a numerical paradigm, can be determined by quantitative numerals and ordinal adjectives). This also includes nouns with occasional (derivational-correlating) plural meanings. hours (type beauty Crimeajoy life,income farmer,smells spirits);

b) real and collective (in the lexical meanings of words rags, sickness and under. materiality and collectivity are united). Nouns of type rags qualify as collective with elements of materiality (they are included in their own triple series: rag - rags - rags), and nouns of type brushwood– as real ones with an additional value of collectivity. In the modern Russian language there are many nouns that combine the signs of collectiveness and materiality; their triple series consists of a) a specific noun with the meaning of singularity; b) a specific substantive in the plural form. hours; c) a noun in the singular form. hours with the meaning of collectiveness and materiality. The latter are usually unaffixed, for example:

bead - beads -beads ,

grape - grapes -grape ,

pea - pea -peas ,

pearl - pearls -pearl ,

caviar - caviar -caviar ,

potatoes - potatoes -potato ,

grain - grains -groats ,

marmalade - marmalade -marmalade ,

grain of sand - grains of sandsand ,

fluff - fluff -fluff ,

speck of dust - speck of dustdust ,

snowflake - snowflakes - withneg ,

straw - straws -straw ,

currant - currant -currant .

They designate matter as a united set consisting of single objects;

c) actually specific and collective (in the lexical meaning of words crowd, flock, people, regiment, platoon etc., there is a collective meaning, but they have the grammatical characteristics of specific nouns themselves). Apparently, words like furniture, dishes, which denote a set of objects represented by different names; for example, furniture includes tables, chairs, cabinets, etc., dishes - plates, tureens, forks, spoons, etc.

L.L. Bulanin and L.D. Chesnokov speak about the presence of semantics of collectiveness in nouns curls, finances, flakes, thickets, ruins, ruins and under. [Bulanin L.L. Difficult questions of morphology. - M.: Enlightenment, 1976. - 208 p.; Chesnokova L.D. Russian language. Difficult cases morphological analysis. - M.: Higher School, 1991. - S. 30].

Other cases of combining in one word the signs of two lexico-semantic categories of nouns at the same time are possible. Therefore, in practical consideration similar examples one should take into account the presence of these signs and not try to subjectively attribute the noun to any one “pure”, non-hybrid category.

Animate and inanimate nouns . The division of nouns in the modern Russian language into animate and inanimate does not fully coincide with the existing scientific understanding of animate and inanimate nature.

Semantically to animate noun include nouns that call people and animals, living beings; inanimate characterizes the names of all other objects and phenomena of objective reality. But it should be noted that there is no complete parallelism between the biological concept of living (organic) and inanimate (inorganic) - on the one hand, and the linguistic concept of animate / inanimate - on the other. Thus, the names of flowers, shrubs, trees, and even sets of persons, animals ( crowd, people, regiment, company, group, platoon, flock etc.) do not have the grammatical category of animation and vice versa - nouns of the type doll, mermaid, queen, jack, king, ace are grammatically animate.

Grammatically, the category of animateness / inanimateness is expressed in the coincidence or non-coincidence of the forms of them., genus. and wine. cases units and many others. numbers. In the masculine gender, animate nouns have the same vin. and genus. cases and many others. numbers; for the inanimate, vin. and them. cases and many others. numbers. For example:

For other genera, animateness / inanimateness should be determined only by many. number. The names of inanimate nouns of all three genders coincide with them. and wine. cases, for animate - wines. and genus. plural cases numbers.

Some nouns show hesitation in classifying them as animate or inanimate. This applies to the names of the simplest organisms: microbes, bacteria and others. Vin. n. in them in some cases may coincide with them., in other cases - with the genus. case.

In the names of microorganisms, you can use the forms: studybacteria , viruses , microbes , but combinations are more preferable studybacteria, viruses, microbes .

In modern Russian, fluctuations are also observed in the use of wine forms. case of nouns face, personality, character and some others.

Nouns that name animate objects, when used to refer to inanimate objects, can retain morphological signs of animation: run papersnake , bring downscout, bomber , dancehopaka . And vice versa: some of the polysemic words, usually used as inanimate, in one of the meanings can be used as animate; compare: In the corner of the shed laymattress stuffed with hay. You haven't seen such a fool in your life,mattress ?

As grammatically animated, they act in one of the meanings when referring to a certain person of the word idol, idol, blockhead, spirit, type, idol, chump and under.

The animate are mainly nouns husband. and wives. kind. Animated neuter nouns are represented by the words child, creature, face, monster, monster, monster, animal, insect, mammal and under. Names of celestial bodies Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) change like inanimate nouns.

Some nouns can be classified as animate on the basis of formal features, for example, the presence of a person suffix - Tel-. A.A. Shakhmatov: “The category of animation is also associated with the suffix - body; it depends on the fact that this suffix actually forms the names of male actors” [Shakhmatov A.A. The syntax of the Russian language. - L., 1941. - S. 446].

On the issue of distinguishing between animate and inanimate nouns in the linguistic literature, there is another point of view, according to which, in addition to those listed above, animate nouns also include nouns that do not have the same wines. and genus. cases in units and many others. number, although these words denote persons, living beings, for example: regiment, people, flock, students and others. Considering that grammar studies the lexico-grammatical, and not the lexical category of animation, that is, the category that has a material expression in certain grammatical forms, the first point of view should be adopted.

Most modern linguists believe that all nouns are divided into animate and inanimate. However, there is another, clarifying point of view (A.N. Gvozdev, E.M. Galkina-Fedoruk): only specific nouns can be divided into animate and inanimate; the abstract always refers to the inanimate.

The value of animation / inanimateness is nominative, as it is based on an assessment of the facts of the objective world, takes into account the animate and inanimate world of nature. However, there is no complete correspondence here.

The meaning of animation / inanimateness is classificatory, constant, present in the word in any of its forms; animateness / inanimateness is regularly expressed syntactically (coincidence of the vin. case with the genus or genus; corresponding forms of agreed adjectives, participles, pronouns, numerals).

For indeclinable nouns, the syntactic expression of animate / inanimate is the only one. Nouns pluralia tantum belong to the inanimate: cream, day, gate, pants, holidays.

Many phenomena associated with the grammatical category of animateness / inanimateness are explained by the fact that this category took shape in the Russian language in the 16th century, first in units. hours, then - in plural. h., and before that, in Old Russian, the norm was the coincidence of wines. case with him .. The category of animation first covered personal and proper names, then spread to nouns that name animals. A relic connecting with the period when the category of animation was not yet grammatically formalized are constructions of the type go out to the people, promote to officers, elect to deputies[Kretova Ts.N., Sobinnikova V.I. Historical commentary on the phonetics and grammar of the Russian language. - Voronezh, 1987. - S. 52-53].

Our observations on the results presented by the informants, in the role of teachers and students of the philological and natural faculties of the Tauride National University and teachers of Russian studies in Crimean schools, confirm the idea of ​​expanding the lexical and grammatical category of animation in modern Russian.

The same as abstract nouns.

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"abstract nouns" in books

4. Compound nouns