Quite often, students ask: "What is a common noun and a proper name?" Despite the simplicity of the question, not everyone knows the definition of these terms and the rules for writing such words. Let's figure it out. After all, in fact, everything is extremely simple and clear.
Common noun
The most significant layer of nouns are They denote the names of a class of objects or phenomena that have a number of features by which they can be attributed to the specified class. For example, common nouns are: cat, table, corner, river, girl. They do not name any particular object or person, animal, but designate a whole class. When we use these words, we mean any cat or dog, any table. Such nouns are written with a small letter.
In linguistics, common nouns are also called appellatives.
Proper name
Unlike common nouns, they make up an insignificant layer of nouns. These words or phrases denote a specific and specific object that exists in a single copy. Proper names include names of people, names of animals, names of cities, rivers, streets, countries. For example: Volga, Olga, Russia, Danube. They are always capitalized and refer to a specific person or single object.
The science of onomastics is engaged in the study of proper names.
Onomastics
So, what is a common noun and a proper name, we have sorted it out. Now let's talk about onomastics - a science that studies proper names. At the same time, not only names are considered, but also the history of their occurrence, how they have changed over time.
Onomast scientists distinguish several directions in this science. So, the study of the names of people is engaged in anthroponymy, the name of peoples - ethnonymy. Cosmonymics and astronomy study the names of stars and planets. Animal nicknames are explored by zoonymy. Theonymy deals with the names of the gods.
This is one of the most promising branches in linguistics. Until now, research on onomastics is being carried out, articles are being published, conferences are being held.
Transition of common nouns to proper names, and vice versa
A common noun and a proper name can move from one group to another. Quite often it happens that a common noun becomes a proper name.
For example, if a person is called by a name that was previously included in the class of common nouns, it becomes its own. A vivid example of such a transformation is the names Vera, Love, Hope. Previously, they were common nouns.
Surnames formed from common nouns also pass into the category of anthroponyms. So, you can highlight the names Kot, Cabbage and many others.
As for proper names, they quite often pass into another category. Often this refers to the names of people. Many inventions bear the names of their authors, sometimes the names of scientists are assigned to quantities or phenomena discovered by them. So, we know the units of ampere and newton.
The names of the heroes of the works can become common nouns. So, the names Don Quixote, Oblomov, Uncle Styopa became the designation of certain features of appearance or character characteristic of people. Names and surnames of historical figures and celebrities can also be used as common nouns, for example, Schumacher and Napoleon.
In such cases, it is necessary to clarify what exactly the addresser has in mind in order to avoid mistakes when writing the word. But often you can from the context. We think you understand what a common noun and a proper name are. The examples we have given show this quite clearly.
Rules for writing proper names
As you know, all parts of speech obey the rules of spelling. Nouns - common noun and proper - are also no exception. Remember a few simple rules that will help you prevent annoying mistakes further.
- Proper names are always written with capital letter, for example: Ivan, Gogol, Catherine the Great.
- Nicknames of people are also capitalized, but without quotation marks.
- Proper names used in the meaning of common nouns are written with a small letter: donquixote, donjuan.
- If service words or generic names (cape, city) stand next to a proper name, then they are written with a small letter: the Volga River, Lake Baikal, Gorky Street.
- If a proper name is the name of a newspaper, cafe, book, then it is taken in quotation marks. In this case, the first word is written with a capital letter, the rest, if they do not belong to proper names, are written with a small letter: "Master and Margarita", "Russian Truth".
- Common nouns are written with a small letter.
As you can see, quite simple rules. Many of them are known to us since childhood.
Summing up
All nouns are divided into two large classes - proper nouns and common nouns. The first is much less than the second. Words can move from one class to another, while acquiring a new meaning. Proper names are always capitalized. Common nouns - with a small one.
Nouns are divided into proper and common nouns according to their meaning. The very definitions of this part of speech have Old Slavonic roots.
The term "common" comes from "reproaches", "reproaches", and is used for the general name of homogeneous, similar objects and phenomena, and "proper" means "feature", individual person or a single item. This naming distinguishes it from other objects of the same type.
For example, the common word "river" defines all rivers, but the Dnieper, Yenisei are proper names. These are constant grammatical features of nouns.
What are proper names in Russian
A proper name is an exclusive name for an object, phenomenon, person, different from others, standing out from other multiple concepts.
These are the names and nicknames of people, the names of countries, cities, rivers, seas, astronomical objects, historical events, holidays, books and magazines, animal names.
Also, ships, enterprises, various institutions, product brands and much more that require a special name can have their own names. May consist of one or more words.
Spelling defined next rule: all proper names are capitalized. For example: Vanya, Morozko, Moscow, Volga, Kremlin, Russia, Russia, Christmas, Battle of Kulikovo.
Names that have a conditional or symbolic meaning, are enclosed in quotation marks. These are the names of books and various publications, organizations, firms, events, etc.
Compare: Big theater, but the Sovremennik theater, the Don River and the Quiet Don novel, the play Thunderstorm, the Pravda newspaper, the Admiral Nakhimov motor ship, the Lokomotiv stadium, the Bolshevichka factory, the Mikhailovskoye Museum-Reserve.
Note: the same words, depending on the context, are common or proper and are written according to the rules. Compare: bright sun and star Sun, native earth and planet Earth.
Proper names, consisting of several words and denoting a single concept, are underlined as one member of the sentence.
Let's look at an example: Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov wrote a poem that made him famous. So, in this sentence, the subject will be three words (first name, patronymic and last name).
Types and examples of proper nouns
Studying proper names linguistic science onomastics. This term is derived from the ancient Greek word and means "the art of giving names"
This area of linguistics deals with the study of information about the name of a particular, individual object and distinguishes several types of names.
Anthroponyms are called proper names and surnames of historical figures, folklore or literary characters, famous and ordinary people, their nicknames or pseudonyms. For example: Abram Petrovich Hannibal, Ivan the Terrible, Lenin, Lefty, Judas, Koschey the Immortal.
Toponyms study the appearance of geographical names, names of cities, streets, which may reflect the specifics of the landscape, historical events, religious motives, lexical features of the indigenous population, economic signs. For example: Rostov-on-Don, Kulikovo field, Sergiev Posad, Magnitogorsk, Strait of Magellan, Yaroslavl, Black Sea, Volkhonka, Red Square, etc.
Astronyms and cosmonyms analyze the appearance of the names of celestial bodies, constellations, galaxies. Examples: Earth, Mars, Venus, Halley's Comet, Stozhary, Ursa Major, Milky Way.
There are other sections in onomastics that study the names of deities and mythological heroes, the names of nationalities, the names of animals, etc., helping to understand their origin.
Common noun - what is it
These nouns name any concept from a set of similar ones. They have lexical meaning, that is, informative, in contrast to proper names, which do not have such a property and only name, but do not express the concept, do not reveal its properties.
The name doesn't tell us anything Sasha, it only identifies a specific person. In the phrase girl Sasha, we learn the age and gender.
Common noun examples
Common names are all the realities of the world around us. These are words expressing specific concepts: people, animals, natural phenomena, objects, etc.
Examples: doctor, student, dog, sparrow, thunderstorm, tree, bus, cactus.
Can denote abstract entities, qualities, states or characteristics:courage, understanding, fear, danger, peace, power.
How to define a proper or common noun
A common noun can be distinguished by meaning, because it names an object or phenomenon related to homogeneous, and a grammatical feature, because it can change by numbers ( year - years, man - people, cat - cats).
But many nouns (collective, abstract, real) do not have the form plural (childhood, darkness, oil, inspiration) or the only one ( frosts, weekdays, darkness). Common nouns are written with a small letter.
Proper nouns are the distinctive name of single objects. They can only be used in the singular or plural ( Moscow, Cheryomushki, Baikal, Catherine II).
But if they call different persons or objects, they can be used in the plural ( Ivanov family, both Americas). Capitalized, enclosed in quotation marks if necessary.
Its useful to note: between proper and common names there is a constant exchange, they tend to move into the opposite category. common words Faith Hope Love became proper names in Russian.
Many borrowed names were also originally common nouns. For example, Peter - "stone" (Greek), Victor - "winner" (Lat.), Sophia - "wisdom" (Greek).
Often in history, proper names become common nouns: bully (English Houlihan family with a bad reputation), volt (physicist Alessandro Volta), colt (inventor Samuel Colt). Literary characters can acquire a common noun: donquixote, Judas, plushkin.
Toponyms have given names to many objects. For example: cashmere fabric (Kashmir Valley of Hindustan), cognac (province in France). Wherein animated name own becomes inanimate common noun.
And vice versa, it happens that generic concepts become uncommon: Lefty, cat Fluff, signor Tomato.
Nouns name objects, phenomena or concepts. These meanings are expressed using the categories of gender, number, and case. All nouns belong to the groups of own and common nouns. Proper nouns, which serve as the names of single objects, are opposed to common nouns, denoting generalized names of homogeneous objects.
Instruction
To determine common nouns, establish whether the named object or phenomenon belongs to the class of homogeneous objects (city, person, song). The grammatical feature of common nouns is the category of number, i.e. using them in the singular and plural (cities, people, songs). Please note that most real, abstract and collective nouns do not have a plural form (gasoline, inspiration, youth).
To determine proper nouns, determine whether the name is an individual designation of the subject, i.e. does it highlight " name» an object from a number of homogeneous (Moscow, Russia, Sidorov). Proper nouns call the names and surnames of persons and nicknames of animals (Nekrasov, Pushok, Frou-frou) - geographical and astronomical objects (America, Stockholm, Venus) - institutions, organizations, print media (Pravda newspaper, Spartak team, store "El Dorado").
Proper names, as a rule, do not change in numbers and are used only in the singular (Voronezh) or only in the plural (Sokolniki). Please note that there are exceptions to this rule. Proper nouns are used in the plural form if they denote different persons and objects that have the same name (both Americas, Petrov's namesakes) - persons who are related (the Fedorov family). Also proper nouns can be used in the plural form, if they call a certain type of people, "highlighted" according to quality characteristics famous literary character. Please note that in this meaning, nouns lose their sign of belonging to a group of single objects, therefore, both the use of an uppercase and a lowercase letter (Chichikovs, Famusovs, Pechorins) is acceptable.
The orthographic feature that distinguishes between proper nouns and common nouns is the use of a capital letter and quotation marks. At the same time, all proper names are always written with a capital letter, and the names of institutions, organizations, works, objects are used as applications and are enclosed in quotation marks (the ship "Fyodor Chaliapin", Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons"). Any part of speech can be included in the appendix, but the first word is always capitalized (Daniel Defoe's novel The Life and Adventures of the Sailor Robinson Crusoe).
When opening a new Internet resource, one of the most difficult problems becomes a choice suitable name. This process is further complicated by the fact that most of the monosyllabic domain names are already taken by more efficient Internet startups. But there is still a way out.
You will need
- - resource brand-book;
- - a list of theses of the semantic load of the title.
Instruction
Divide the name selection process into two successive steps: choosing a name for the resource itself and choosing a domain name. First of all, you need to find best options for the title. It is necessary to determine the main goals and objectives of the resource, the policy for creating content and the style of presenting the material. It does not matter whether the resource is commercial or not.
Create a list of abstracts for the future name based on the accepted brand book. They should outline the informative and emotional content of the future name. There are no clear restrictions when compiling such a list: these can be nouns and verbs, proper names and common nouns, they can express emotions and feelings.
Gather an initiative group of employees related to the resource and brainstorm. To increase efficiency, it is necessary to distribute in advance to all participants the task of compiling a list of abstracts. At their discretion, everyone should make an arbitrary written description of the most important informative features of the future site name. During the brainstorming session, ask everyone to read their list in turn and, as part of a peer discussion, select the most successful proposals.
Summarize the brainstorming and make a final list of abstracts. On their basis, each of the members of the initiative group must draw up a list of names and titles. It is best to limit the number of suggested options by quantity.
Gather suggested lists and try to find some of the best names. After that, check if the same domain names are free, including those in the rf zone. If you don't find an exact match, take a seat, otherwise try modifying the site name by using valid punctuation marks, numbers instead of letters, etc.
denoting the name ( common name) a whole class of objects and phenomena that have a certain common set of features, and name objects or phenomena according to their belonging to such a class. Common nouns are signs of linguistic concepts and are opposed to proper names. The transition of common nouns to proper names is accompanied by the loss of a name language concept(for example, "Gum" from "gum" - "right"). Common nouns are concrete (table), abstract or abstract (love), real or material (sugar), and collective (students).
A noun designates a representation or concept on its own, regardless of any relationship to other representations with which it may be associated. A noun can denote both an object, a quality or a property, and an action. Its difference from the verb and adjective lies not in the real meaning, but in way expressions for this value. If we compare, for example, the adjective " white" and the verb " turns white» with a noun « white”, we will see that all three words denote a representation of quality; but adjective ( white) expresses it, while pointing to some object that has this quality, and the verb ( turns white), moreover, depicts this quality in its occurrence, while the noun ( white) has no such side values. There are many other nouns denoting actions, for example " burning, melting, movement, withdrawal, import, exit". The difference between their meaning and the meaning of the corresponding verbs is the same as in the above example. In Indo-European languages, the category of grammatical gender has also developed in the noun: each noun must necessarily be either masculine, or feminine, or neuter. Nouns in Indo-European languages are formed from roots with numerous suffixes. These suffixes usually express special shades of the meaning of nouns, which can be divided according to them into several categories:
- Names actors(nomina agentium), the most important suffix of which is * - ter: Skt. d â -tar-, Greek δω - τήρ, Latin da-tor, Church Slavonic yes-tel.
- Names guns(instrumenti) having the same suffixes with
- names places(loci);
- Nouns collective(collective)
- diminutives
- Names action(n. actionis), formed by very diverse suffixes, of which the forms forming the indefinite mood and supin deserve special attention - forms that have joined the system of verb forms.
There are also nouns in Indo-European languages that coincide in their basis with the root without any suffix. The category of a noun, like all grammatical categories, is not stable (cf. Syntax): we often observe both the transition of a noun to another category, and the transformation of other parts of speech into a noun (for the latter, see Substantiation; on the creation of the category of the indefinite inclinations - see Inclination). The boundary between noun and adjective is especially fluid. As adjectives could turn into nouns in various ways, and vice versa, nouns often turned into adjectives. The use of a noun as an application already brings it closer to an adjective. Since a noun can also denote a quality, the transition to an adjective is facilitated from this side as well. In some languages, nouns can also form degrees of comparison (see also comparative). Initially, there was no formal distinction between nouns and adjectives: the declension of nouns is no different from that of adjectives in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin. Thus, such phrases as the Latin exercitus victor "victorious army" (sob. "army-winner"), bos orator "draft ox" (sob. "ox-plowman"), etc. could easily arise. In the same way in Indo-European languages, complex adjectives were formed from nouns, for example, the Greek ροδοδάκτυλος “rosy-fingered” (prop. “pink finger”) or Latin magnanimus “generous” (prop. “ great spirit”), German barfuss “barefoot” (cob. “bare foot”), Church Slavonic chrnovlas “black-haired” (cob. “black hair”), etc. Psychologically, such a transformation of a noun into an adjective should be accompanied by the fact that the real meaning of the noun is thought as something inherent in another subject - and this process in the formation of words is generally very common. Especially often it can be observed in the formation of nicknames, when a person is called, for example, “wolf”, “biryuk” and even “bright buttons” (as Akim calls the officer in “The Power of Darkness”).
