2. Put in an apostrophe where necessary.

66) My brothers name is Jack.

67) My brothers friends know English.

68) A mans hands are stronger than a womans.

69) The wolfs howl was heard in the forest.

70) I buy my meat at Johnsons.

71) I shall be at the dentists.

72) Call me at Bills.

73) I spotted the brides fathers uncles silk hat on the seat of a straight chair.

74) A man stepped out from the tobacconists and waved to them.

75) Crime is a product of a countrys social order.

Unit 5

Give female nouns correspondent to the following male nouns:

76) groom 77) peacock 78) bull 79) cock (Br.) (rooster – Am.)

80) drake 81) host 82) nephew

83) fox 84) duke 85) waiter

Review Exercises

Translate into English.

86. Я дам вам все сведения по этому вопросу. Они надежные.

87. Шашки – популярная игра.

88. Деньги на столе.

89. Полиция здесь и уже ищет убийцу. Она сообщила, что он будет найден в ближайшее время.

90. Скот пасется на лугу.

91. Мои знания английского вполне хорошие.

92. Он делает хорошие успехи.

93. Это такие хорошие новости!

94. Вчерашняя газета напечатала ее фотографию с совершенно седыми волосами.

95. Это одежда хорошо защищает нас от холода.

96. Крутая лестница ведет к морю.

97. Товар прибыл, но он еще на корабле.

98. Ее советы были мудрыми.

99. Мои часы отстают.

100. Окно комнаты выходило во двор.

Total 100/______

UNIT 1 MEANING AND WORD-FORMATION

1. A noun is a word used to name a person (a teacher), thing (a cup), place (London), idea (transparency), event (war) or even an action (reading).

In English, nouns make up the most numerous class of words. The potential number of nouns in English is infinite because almost any word there can be made into a noun with or without affixes: Don’t trouble (v) trouble (n) until trouble (n) troubles (v) you.

N ouns can be simple (a book, a ship, a window), compound (a blackbird, a bedroom, a dining-room) or derived (darkness, misprint, unemployment, a jump).

2. Derivation by suffixation (development) is more typical of nouns than derivation by prefixation (prehistory, subway, outlook).

The major concepts that are named in English by suffixational nouns are:

– agent or instrument: -er, -ant, -ee, -ian, and -ist: worker, assistant, employee, communist; revolver;

– result of an action: -ion, -ment, -ing, -ure, -ance, -age: revolution, transmission. development, building, pressure, tolerance, coverage;

– abstract quality: -ness, -ancy/-ency,-ism, -ship, -th: darkness, fluency, modernism, hardship, truth.

Suffixational nouns are also used to name:

– feminine agent: -ess, -ine, -ette: baroness, heroine, cosmonette;

– diminution and endearment: -let, -y, -ling, -ette: booklet, doggie, duckling, kitchenette;

– the one with a distinctive quality (usu. derogatory): -ard, -ster, -ton: drunkard, gangster, youngster, simpleton;

– relatedness to a proper name:-an, -ese: Indian, Japanese;

– belonging to, working in or as: -ary: missionary, functionary;

– the state or time of being: -hood: childhood, motherhood;

– collection: -age: baggage, trackage;

– the amount needed to fill a certain container:-ful: a cupful, a handful.

Here are the most typical suffixes that make nouns:

from verbs:

-er/ -or: speaker, reader, actor, supervisor

-ent/-ant: assistant, student

-ee: employee, interviewee

-ion: education, relation, invasion, revision

-ment: government, development, imprisonment

-ing: building, writing, setting

-ance/-ence: resistance, difference

-ure: departure, pleasure

-age: leakage, marriage

f rom adjectives:

-ity/-ty: mentality, normality, reality, safety, certainty

-ness: happiness, darkness, deepness

-dom: freedom, wisdom

from nouns:

-hood: childhood, neighbourhood

-dom: kingdom, dukedom

-ship: friendship, leadership

-ism: capitalism, sexism

-ary: missionary, functionary

-age: hostage, orphanage

-ful: handful, cupful

-ette: kitchenette, launderette

3. Besides affixational there are also affixless ways of deriving nouns. The most common of them are:

conversion for deriving nouns from verbs (usually monosyllabic) as in to cut (v) – a cut (n), to drop (v) – a drop (n). (Verbs are also derived from nouns by conversion as in dust (n) – to dust (v). For details see Chapter II);

substantivation for deriving nouns from other parts of speech as in poor (adj) – the poor (n), adult (adj) – an adult (n), and

stress-shift for deriving some two-syllable nouns from verbs of Romance origin borrowed from French: trans`port (v) – `transport (n), re`cord (v) – `record (n), pre`sent (v) – `present (n).

E x e r c i s e s

1.1. Single out nouns in the list of words below and in each noun underline the suffix that indicates the word is a noun.

Apply (v), application (n), qualify, quality, barrister, basement, environment, circulation, shutter, versatile, expedition, greedy, possibility, governor, hereditary, shoplifting, burglary, disability, astrology, precision, hostage, kingdom, brotherhood, education, student, colloquialism, commitment, competence, compliance, complicate, compiler, creditor, kitchenette, solicitor.

1.2. Think of nouns related to the following words and denoting:

a) agent or instrument: study, work, assist, national, read, impression, reside, receive, transform, economy, law;

b) result of an action: entertain, govern, develop, transmit, legislate, expose, appear, perform, accept, leak, cover, swim, write;

c) abstract quality: kind, expect, modern, race, hard.

1.3. Transform the following words into nouns by adding noun suffixes. Some words may be able to take more than one suffix.

Talk – talker – talking; admit, agree, annihilate, appoint, argue, arrange, arrogant, bitter, blind, cancel, clean, clear, deliver, develop, destruct, drowsy, economic, dumb, eliminate, exaggerate, examine, fly, invest, inform, leak, learn, lease, legislate, mark, moderate, modern, organise, pay, perform, protect, specify.

1.4. Name other words morphologically related to the nouns below.

Agent – agency, address, advice, advertisement, allowance, arrival, computer, certificate, competition, corruption, delivery, devaluation, notification, organ, origin, ship.

1.5. Transform the following verbs and adjectives into nouns without adding noun suffixes and translate them into Russian.

To answer ‘отвечать’ – an answer ‘ответ’, to bankrupt, blind, to claim, to cost, to discount, to export, to fine, to forecast, to import, to loan, poor, to love, to project, to look, to offer, rival, to protest, to sale, to share, to swim, black, to progress, to supply, to transport, to conduct.

1.6. Convert the following nouns into verbs without adding noun suffixes and translate them into Russian.

Dust ‘пыль’– to dust ‘убирать пыль, покрываться пылью’, interest, note, number, nurse, reason, risk, order, sail, stock, tax, value, veto.

1.7. Read the text and put in the right noun derived from the word in brackets as in the example below.

(1) A (to compute) – computer built at a college in London often suffers from (2) (to bore). The computer was built to find out about human (3) (to communicate). The computer acquired a simple vocabulary in the same way as babies do: through (4) (to babble). It is common (5) (to know) that when babies babble, it is a (6) (to prepare) for speech. With (7) (to encourage) from their parents, babies quickly build up their vocabulary. In the same way the computer learnt to use real words. For example, it learnt to identify a black cat. It was then shown a white cat to test how good it was at (8) (to recognize). It refused to co-operate because the (9) (to solve) to the problem was too easy. At first this (10) (to refuse) puzzled scientists, but then they decided the computer was having a tantrum. “These computers must also be taught good (11) (to behave),’ a (12) (science) said.

UNIT 2 NOUN CLASSES

Nouns can be proper or common (the latter may be concrete, abstract, collective or mass), countable or uncountable.

1. According to the type of referent, nouns can be classified into proper and common.

Proper nouns [from Lat. proprius ‘one’s own’] begin with a capital letter. They are the names of places (California, the Caucasus), specific people or deities (Shakespeare, Jupiter), titles used with names (Professor Higgins), places (Chicago), names of languages, nationalities and religions (Catholicism, Russians) names of holidays (Christmas), names of months and weeks (February, Sunday), names of courses (I’m taking Chemistry), names of specific organizations (Rotary Club), names of parts of the world (the East ‘mainly Asia’, the West ‘mainly western Europe and the United States’, Far East).

Proper names may consist of more than one word: New York, Kennedy Airport, Uncle George (though ‘my/his uncle, my/his uncle George’), Captain Andrews, the Mississippi River, the French Revolution.

Common nouns [from Lat. communis ‘shared by many’] are nouns that are not proper names, such as capital in: The capital of the Netherlands is the Hague, or sun and west in The sun sets in the west.

There are four different groups of common nouns: concrete nouns (a computer, a shop), abstract nouns (humour, action), mass nouns (tea, butter) and collective nouns (fruit, equipment, people).

Depending on the meaning, some proper nouns may be converted into common nouns: the Thompsons I know. The proper noun Thompson cannot ordinarily be made plural, but here the Thompsons means ‘the family with the name Thompson’.

2. According to the grammatical form nouns can be classified into countable and uncountable.

Countable nouns refer to entities viewed as countable: a student, a house, and an apple. They can be preceded by a/an or one in the singular and be accompanied by determiners referring to distinctions in number, like many, several, a few, or ten.

Uncountable nouns refer to entities we cannot count furniture, music, speech, water, blood. Uncountable nouns are used either without an article (Music enriches us) or with the definite article the (This is the music I like). They are treated as singular and can be accompanied only by determiners that do not refer to distinctions in number: much, a lot, a little.

T here is not, however, a strict borderline between grammatical noun classes either.

N ouns that are ordinarily uncountable can be used as countable nouns in the following cases:

a) when the uncountable mass noun refers to a particular kind or variety of kinds: They export wine and cheese but It is a good wine. The store has a large selection of wines and cheeses;

b) when the uncountable mass noun refers to units that are obvious in the situation: I like coffee but I’ll have two coffees, please (‘two cups of coffee’);

c) when the uncountable mass noun refers to objects of definite shape made of some material: a glass (‘a drinking vessel’) of milk; the glass (‘barometer’) is falling;

d) when the uncountable abstract noun becomes more concrete in the situation: Language is a very complicated system but It’s not easy to learn a foreign language.

And vice versa, some countable nouns may be changed into uncoutable when they denote mass I like the chicken (‘the bird’) but I like chicken (‘flesh of a chicken’).

3. There is a tendency for concrete nouns to be countable but for mass and abstract nouns to be uncountable.

As for collective nouns they may be: countable (a family – families, a crowd – crowds, a nation – nations) or uncountable.

Uncountable collective nouns may be:

1. always in singular as foliage, machinery;

2. always in plural as clothes, remains;

3. singular in form but plural in meaning: the cattle are grazing, the poultry are kept in the garden, the people are generous, the police are happy;

4. singular in form but singular and plural in the meaning: The family has lived here for hundreds of years (‘family’ is thought of as the group as a whole). The family have all gone for a holiday (‘family’ is thought of as a number of individuals).

Some of collective nouns can be uncountable in one sense and countable in another: People ‘люди’ (uncountable) want to live in peace. All peoples ‘народы’ (countable) of Africa were dreaming about freedom.

NOTE that the results of this grammatical classification of nouns into countable and uncountable may not coincide in different languages, for example, English nouns knowledge, progress, news are uncountable and are used only in singular in contrast to countable Russian знание, успех, новость.

E x e r c i s e s