- •1. Grammatical category. Grammatical meaning. Grammatical form
- •2. Theory of oppositions. Types of oppositions. Oppositions in morphology
- •3. Morpheme. Derivation morphemes and inflection morphemes
- •4. Distributional analysis. Morphemic analysis. Ic-analysis
- •1. Noun
- •2. Adjective
- •3. Pronoun
- •4. Numeral
- •5. The verb
- •7. The adverb
- •8. Prepositions
- •9. Conjunctions
- •10. Particles
- •11. Interjections
- •1. General characteristics
- •2. The category of number
- •3. The category of case
- •4. The Problem of Gender in English
- •5. The Category of Determination
- •1. A General Outline of the Verb as a Part of Speech
- •2. Classification of Verbs
- •3. The Category of Person
- •4. The Category of Number
- •5. The category of tense
- •6. The category of aspect
- •7. The category of temporal correlation
- •1. The category of voice
- •2. The Category of Mood
- •3. Mood and Modality
- •4. Oppositional reduction of verbal categories
- •Introductory
- •1. A general outline of the adjective
- •2. Classification of adjectives
- •3. The problem of the category of state
- •4. The category of comparison
- •5. The Adverb
- •1. A General Outline of Functional Parts of Speech
- •2. The Preposition
- •3. The Conjunction
- •4. The Particle
- •5. The Interjection
- •6. The Modal Word
- •1. The phrase as the basic unit of syntax.
- •2. Types of phrases
- •3. Types of syntactic relations
- •1. The notion of sentence. The sentence as a language unit
- •2. Classifications of simple sentences
- •1. The traditional scheme of sentence parsing
- •2. The main sentence parts: the subject and the predicate, their types
- •3. The Secondary Sentence Parts
- •4. Structural Schemes of the Sentence. The Elementary Sentence
- •5. Syntactic Processes
- •1. Semantic Roles and Semantic Configurations
- •2. Actual Division of the Sentence
- •3. Language means of expressing the theme and the rheme
- •1. The Definition of the Composite Sentence
- •2. Compound Sentences
- •3. Complex Sentences
- •4. Asyndetic Sentences
- •5. Transition From Simple To Composite Sentences
- •6. Mixed type of composite sentences
- •1. Semantics and Pragmatics
- •2. Indirect Meaning of the Utterance
- •1. Speech acts theory. Classification of speech acts
- •2. Pragmatic transposition of sentences
- •1. Conversational Implicature
- •2. The Cooperative principle and Grice’s maxims
- •3. The Politeness principle and Leech’s maxims
- •1. Text as an Object of Linguistic Research
- •2. Cohesion and Coherence
- •3. Textual Categories
- •4. Textual Units. Supra-Phrasal Unity and Paragraph
2. The category of number
The grammatical category of number is the linguistic representation of the
objective category of quantity. The number category is realized through the
opposition of two form-classes: the plural form :: the singular form.
There are different approaches to defining the category of number. Thus,
some scholars believe that the category of number in English is restricted in its
realization because of the dependent implicit grammatical meaning of
countableness/uncountableness. The category of number is realized only within
subclass of countable nouns, i.e. nouns having numeric (discrete) structure.
Uncountable nouns have no category of number, for they have quantitative
(indiscrete) structure. Two classes of uncountables can be distinguished: singularia
tantum (only singular) and pluralia tantum (only plural). M. Blokh, however, does
not exclude the singularia tantum subclass from the category of number. He calls
such forms absolute singular forms comparable to the ‘common’ singular of
countable nouns.
In Indo-European languages there are lots of nouns that don’t fit into the
traditional definition of the category based on the notion of quantity. A word can
denote one object, but it has the plural form. Or a noun can denote more than one
thing, but its form is singular. There is a definition of the category of number that
overcomes this inconsistency. It was worked out by prof. Isachenko. According to
him, the category of number denotes marked and unmarked discreteness (not
quantity). A word in a singular form denotes unmarked discreteness whether it is a
book, or a sheep, or sheep. If an object is perceived as a discrete thing, it has the
form of the plural number. Thus, trousers and books are perceived as discrete
object whereas a flock of sheep is seen as a whole. This definition is powerful
because it covers nearly all nouns while the traditional definition excludes many
words.
The grammatical meaning of number may not coincide with the notional
quantity: the noun in the singular does not necessarily denote one object while the
plural form may be used to denote one object consisting of several parts. The
singular form may denote:
a) oneness (individual separate object – a cat);
b) generalization (the meaning of the whole class – The cat is a domestic
animal);
c) indiscreteness (нерасчлененность or uncountableness - money, milk).
The plural form may denote:
a) the existence of several objects (cats);
b) the inner discreteness (внутренняя расчлененность, pluralia tantum,
jeans).
To sum it up, all nouns may be subdivided into three groups:
1. The nouns in which the opposition of explicit
discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed: cat::cats;
2. The nouns in which this opposition is not expressed explicitly but is
revealed by syntactical and lexical correlation in the context. There are two
groups here:
A.Singularia tantum. It covers different groups of nouns: proper names,
abstract nouns, material nouns, collective nouns;
B. Pluralia tantum. It covers the names of objects consisting of several
parts (jeans), names of sciences (mathematics), names of diseases, games, etc.
3. The nouns with homogenous number forms. The number opposition
here is not expressed formally but is revealed only lexically and syntactically in
the context: e.g. Look! A sheep is eating grass. Look! The sheep are eating grass.
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