Noun morphological characteristics
(gender, number and case)
NUMBER: Countable nouns in English
have two numbers the singular and
the plural. The plural can be expressed
in English by: 1. Adding -s or -es to the
singular; -es is added to the nouns
ending in (t) ch, s, ss, sh, x or z: a wish
wishes, a day days, a story nouns into countable and uncountable. I.
stories,a life live. 2. The change of
the root vowel: a man men a woman
women a child children a foot groups. A common noun is the general name of an
feet. 3. Identical forms for the singular
and for the plural: a deer two deer, a
sheep ten sheep, a means some
means. Names of nationalities ending
in -ese, -ss also have identical forms for
the singular and for the plural: a
Chinese the Chinese a Japanese
two Japanese, a Swiss many Swiss.
4. Foreign Plurals: A lot of words
borrowed from Latin and Greek form
their plural in modern English in the
regular way, i.e., by adding -(e)s. But a
few have kept their original Latin or
Greek plural endings. The most
common of them form the plural
according to the table below: cactus
cactuses cacti, phenomenon
phenomenons phenomena. 5. The
plural of compound nouns: a)
Generally compounds form the plural
by adding -(e)s to the second element. a
grown-up grown-ups; a boyfriend
boyfriends; But. a passer-by passers-
by; b) Nouns ending in -in-law add the
plural -s to the noun: a father-in-law
fathers-in-law, But: his/her in-laws; )
If the first element is man or woman,
both elements are made plural: a
woman-driver women-drivers. 6. As
for uncountable nouns some of them
are always singular and some are
plural: singular invariable nouns:
information, advice, money, furniture;
plural invariable nouns: clothes, jeans,
trousers. It is hitting news. My jeans are
denim blue.
Pronoun classification.A pronoun is
a word that replaces a noun or a group
of words used as a noun. Pronouns are
classified in five (5) different
categories. They are personal pronouns,
relative pronouns, demonstrative
pronouns, indefinite pronouns. A
subjective pronoun acts as the subject
of a sentenceit performs the action of
the verb. The subjective pronouns are
he, I, it, she, they, we, and you.He
spends ages looking out the window.
An objective pronoun acts as the object
of a sentenceit receives the action of
the verb. The objective pronouns are
her, him, it, me, them, us, and
you.Cousin Eldred gave me a
trombone. A possessive pronoun tells
you who owns something. The
possessive pronouns are hers, his, its,
mine, ours, theirs, and yours.The red
basket is mine. A demonstrative
pronoun points out a noun. The
demonstrative pronouns are that, these,
this, and those.That is a good idea.
Interrogative Pronouns
An interrogative pronoun is used in a
question. It helps to ask about
something. The interrogative pronouns
are what, which, who, whom, and
compound words ending in "ever," such
as whatever, whichever, whoever, and
whomever. Indefinite PronounsAn
indefinite pronoun refers to an
indefinite, or general, person or thing.
Indefinite pronouns include all, any,
both, each, everyone, few, many,
neither, none, nothing, several, some,
and somebody.Something smells good.
Relative PronounsA relative pronoun
introduces a clause, or part of a
sentence, that describes a noun. The
relative pronouns are that, which, who,
and whom.You should bring the book
that you love most. A reflexive pronoun
refers back to the subject of a sentence.
The reflexive pronouns are herself,
himself, itself, myself, ourselves,
themselves, and yourselves. Each of
these words can also act as an intensive
pronoun (see below).I learned a lot
about myself at summer camp. (Myself
refers back to I. An intensive pronoun
emphasizes its antecedent (the noun
that comes before it). The intensive
pronouns are herself, himself, itself,
myself, ourselves, themselves, and
yourselves. Each of these words can
also act as a reflective pronoun (see
above).I myself don't like eggs.
Noun classification. There are different
classifications of the Noun. The most important are the
semantic classification and the classification of
The
semantic classification of nouns is based on their
meaning, according to which they fall into different
object, a place, a person or an idea: a computer, a
city, a boy, love, joy, luck. A proper noun is the name
of a particular person or a geographical place. Mrs.
Honey, Brian, London, the Tiber, the Alps. A common
noun may be concrete, abstract or collective. A
concrete noun names an object that occupies space
and can be seen and touched: a flower, a CD, a banana
Concrete nouns fall into class and material. A class
noun refers an object to the same class of things. It can
be counted. A material noun denotes substance and
generally is uncountable: a glass glass, an iron
iron. An abstract noun names an idea, some notion:
freedom, intelligence, competence. A collective noun
names a group of people or things: a family, a flotilla,
people, government, cast. The classification of the
Noun can be presented in the following table: The
noun: Common and Proper: Common: Concrete (Class
and Material), Abstract, Collective. Proper: Personal
and Geographical. II. The classification of nouns into
countable and uncountable based on the ability of
nouns to be counted. Countable: a thing, an apple, a
car. Uncountable: news, freedom, happiness. 1. If the
noun is countable it can agree with the verb in the
singular and in the plural; it can take the indefinite
article. The indefinite pronouns (not) many or (a) few
are used. This is a great book. These are
great books. I've got (not) many, (a) few French books
at home. 2. If the noun is uncountable it agrees with
the verb only in the singular; it can't take the indefinite
article, (not) much, (a) little are used with them. It is
hard work. He does much work..
Adjective classification and the degrees of
comparison. The adjective is a part of speech which
modifies the noun. Adjectives can express qualities
(large, modem, quiet), physical and emotional states
(cold, busy, friendly, happy), origin (American, Asian),
opinions (excellent, fantastic, cool), frequency
(weekly, daily, regular). According to their
morphological composition adjectives can be simple
(young, new, fresh), derived (careful, woody, rainy),
compound (well-known, much-praised, man-made).
All adjectives fall into two groups qualitative and
relative. Qualitative adjectives denote properties of a
substance directly (great, calm, gold, beautiful).
Relative adjectives describe properties of a substance
through relation to material (woolen, wooden, golden)
to place (Italian, European), to time (ancient,
contemporary). When two or more adjectives come
before a noun, the usual order is: Value Size Age
Shape Colour Origin Material Opinion him. vs. *The boy crowded round him. The soldiers
Temperature: a pretty little wooden house (value +
size + material) a beautiful old red London bus (value
+ age + colour + origin) This word order is not
compulsory. Sometimes a short adjective comes before
a long one: a soft, comfortable chair; a happy, peaceful
home; a tall, handsome man; a bright, cheerful smile.
The adjective big generally comes before value
adjectives: a big bad wolf, a big tall building, a big
handsome man, a big fat woman. Adjectives are used
in the sentence in the functions of an attribute or of a
predicative: He always drinks cold milk. He is cold
and miserable. Adjectives denoting temporary states
are used only predicatively: ill, well, unwell; as well as
adjectives with the prefix -a: afraid, alike, alive, alone,
asleep, awake, aware (of), ashamed. She doesn't look
very well today. Adjectives have degrees of
comparison: the comparative and the superlative
degree. The adjective expressing some quality without
comparison is said to be in the positive degree. An
equal degree is expressed with the help of the
conjunctions; as ... as, not as (so) ... as in negative
sentences. She is as old as I am. The comparative and
the superlative degrees of comparison are formed in
the synthetic, analytic and suppletive ways. The
synthetic degrees of comparison are formed by adding
the inflexion -er, -est (fine finer finest) to the
adjectives having one or two syllables. The more
recent trend is: happy more happy most happy.
The analytic degrees are formed by means of more
and most (difficult more difficult most
difficult). Several adjectives form their degrees of
comparison irregularly, in the suppletive way when
some other words are used to build up the forms. good
better best, bad worse worst, little less
least, many/much more most. The following
adjectives have double degrees of comparison: far:
farther farthest (with reference to distance), further
furthest (with reference to distance, as well as in
figurative use the next to come).
Verb general notion, grammatical categories of
person, number and aspect. Grammatically the verb
is the most complex part of speech. First of all it
performs the central role in realizing predication -
connection between situation in the utterance and
reality. That is why the verb is of primary informative
significance in an utterance. Besides, the verb
possesses quite a lot of grammatical categories.
Furthermore, within the class of verb various subclass
divisions based on different principles of classification
can befound. Semantic features of the verb. The verb
possesses the grammatical meaning of verbiality - the
ability to denote a process developing in time. This
meaning is inherent not only in the verbs denoting
processes, but also in those denoting states, forms of
existence, evaluations, etc.Morphological features of
the verb. The verb possesses the following
grammatical categories: tense, aspect, voice, mood,
person, number, finitude and phase. The common
categories for finite and non-finite forms are voice,
aspect, phase and finitude. The grammatical categories
of the English verb find their expression in synthetical
and analytical forms. The formative elements
expressing these categories are grammatical affixes,
inner inflexion and function words. Some categories
have only synthetical forms (person, number), others -
only analytical (voice). There are also categories
expressed by both synthetical and analytical forms
(mood, tense, aspect).Syntactic features. The most
universal syntactic feature of verbs is their ability to be
modified by adverbs. The second important syntactic
criterion is the ability of the verb to perform the
syntactic function of the predicate. However, this
criterion is not absolute because only finite forms can
perform this function while non-finite forms can be
used in any function but predicate. And finally, any
verb in the form of the infinitive can be combined with
a modal verb. the category of person is represented in
English by the two-member opposition: third person
singular vs. non-third person singular. The marked
member of the opposition is third person; the
unmarked member is non-third person (it includes the
remaining forms first person, second person forms
singular and plural). The opposition is privative both
in the plane of content and inthe plane of expression.
The category of number shows whether the process is
associated with one doer or with more than one doer,
e.g. He eats three times a day. The sentence indicates a
single eater; the verb is in the singular despite the fact
than more than one process is meant.The category of
number is a two-member opposition: singular and
plural. An interesting feature of this category is the
fact that it is blended with person: number and person
make use of the same morpheme. As person is a
feature of the present tense, number is also restricted
to the present tense.Some verbs modals do not
distinguish number at all. Still others are only used in
the plural because the meaning of oneness is hardly
compatible with their lexical The boys crowded round
regrouped and opened fire. vs.*The soldier regrouped
and opened fire. The category of aspect is a linguistic
representation of the objective category of Manner of
Action. It is realized through the opposition
Continuous::Non-Continuous (Progressive::Non-
Progressive). The realization of the category of aspect
is closely connected with the lexical meaning of verbs.
There are some verbs in English that do not normally
occur with progressive aspect, even in those contexts
in which the majority of verbs necessarily take the
progressive form. Among the so-called non-
progressive verbs are think, understand, know, hate,
love, see, taste, feel, possess, own, etc. The most
striking characteristic that they have in common is the
fact that they are stative - they refer to a state of
affairs, rather than to an action, event or process. It
should be observed, however, that all the non--
progressive' verbs take the progressive aspect under
particular circumstances. As the result of internal
transposition verbs of non-progressive nature can be
found in the Continuous form: Now I'm knowing you.
Generally speaking the Continuous form has at least
two semantic features - duration (the action is always
in progress) and definiteness (the action is always lim
ited to a definite point or period of time). In other
words, the purpose of the Continuous form is to serve
as a frame which makes the process of the action more
concrete and isolated.
Verb the category of tense. The category of tense is
a verbal category that reflects the objective category of
time. The essential characteristic of the category of
tense is that it relates the time of the action, event or
state of affairs referred to in the sentence to the time of
the utterance (the time of the utterance being "now" or
the present moment). The tense category is realized
through the oppositions. The binary principle of
oppositions remains the basic one in the correlation of
the forms that represent the grammatical category of
tense. The present moment is the main temporal plane
of verbal actions. Therefore, the temporal dichotomy
may be illustrated by the following graphic
representation (the arrows show the binary
opposition). Generally speaking, the major tense-
distinction in English is undoubtedly that which is
traditionally described as an opposition of
past::present. But this is best regarded as a contrast of
past:: non-past. Quite a lot of scholars do not
recognize the existence of future tenses, because what
is described as the 'future' tense in English is realized
by means of auxiliary verbs will and shall. Although it
is undeniable that will and shall occur in many
sentences that refer to the future, they also occur in
sentences that do not. And they do not necessarily
occur in sentences with a future time reference. That is
why future tenses are often treated as partly modal.
Parts of speech classification. According to their
meaning, morphological characteristics and syntactical
functions, words fallunder certain classes called parts
of speech. We distinguish between notional and
structural parts of speech.Parts of speech are
grammatical classes of words which are distinguished
on the basis of four criteria:- semantic;-
morphological;- syntactic;that of valency
(combinability). The notional parts of speech perform
certain functions in the sentence. The notional parts of
speech are: . the noun 2. the adjective 3. the pronoun
4. the numeral 5. the verb 6. the adverb 7. the words of
the category of state 8. the modal words 9. the
interjection. The lexical meaning is very general and
weak; they are closed systems (include a limited
number of members); function as linking and
specifying words. They have obligatory combinability;
The structural parts of speech either express relations
between words or sentences or emphasize the meaning
of words or sentences. They never perform any
independent function in the sentence. Here belong: 1.
the preposition 2. the conjunction 3. the particle 4. the
article. The lexical meaning is bright and distinct.They
re open classes. They perform certain functions in the
sentence.They form the "Lexical Paradigm of
Nomination

Verb the category of voice. The form of the verb

may show whether the agent expressed by the subject
is the doer of the action or the recipient of the action
(John broke the vase - the vase was broken). The
objective relations between the action and the subject
or object of the action find their expression in
language as the grammatical category of voice.
Therefore, the category of voice reflects the objective
relations between the action itself and the subject or
object of the action: The category of voice is realized
through the opposition Active voice::Passive voice.
The realization of the voice category is restricted
because of the implicit grammatical meaning of
transitivity/intransitivity. In accordance with this
meaning, all English verbs should fall into transitive
and intransitive. However, the classification turns out
to be more complex and comprises 6 groups:Verbs
used only transitively: to mark, to raise;2Verbs with
the main transitive meaning: to see, to make, to
build;3Verbs of intransitive meaning and secondary
transitive meaning. A lot of intransitive verbs may
develop a secondary transitive meaning: They laughed
me into agreement; He danced the girl out of the
room;Verbs of a double nature, neither of the
meanings are the leading one, the verbs can be used
both transitively and intransitively: to drive home - to
drive a car;Verbs that are never used in the Passive
Voice: to seem, to become;Verbs that realize their
passive meaning only in special contexts: to live, to
sleep, to sit, to walk, to jump.

Verb the category of mood (indicative,

imperative). The category of mood expresses the
relation of nominative content of the sentence towards
reality. Hence there are two moods one presenting
the action as real and the other presenting the action as
unreal. The indicative mood is used to make factual
statements, ask questions, or express opinions as if
they were facts. Any verb tense may be deployed in
the indicative mood. A sentence in the imperative
mood expresses commands or requests. It indicates
that the speaker desires for the action expressed in the
sentence to take place. In most imperative sentences,
theres an implied you. Sit on the sofa. Let me go to
bed Keep reading.

Verb the category of mood (subjunctive). In

English, the subjunctive mood is used to explore
conditional or imaginary situations. It can be tricky to
use, which partially explains why many speakers and
writers forgo it. But its quite useful (and aesthetically
pleasing, at least to us), and careful users of English
should do their part to preserve it. The subjunctive
mood is used to explore conditions that are contrary to
fact:If I were President, I wouldnt put up with it. Its
used to explore hypotheticals:If I were to embroider a
sampler, it would say, Simple is truly best in
Frytown. Its used to express wishes: I wish I were
there to have a drink with you and dish. Its used to
express commands or demands She demanded that he
leave the hospital premises Its used to express
suggestions:I suggest that he implement a budget cut
in March. Its used to make statements of necessity:Its
essential that they be heard