5.3. The noun 5.3.1.

Definition and characteristics According to Kolln and Funk, a noun is a word that can be made plural and/or possessive; it occupies the headword position in the noun phrase; it is usually signalled by a determiner. (2012, 19) Leech (2006, 72) describes nouns as a very large class of words which refer to entities (persons, things, substances, places and abstractions of various kinds). As we have seen in previous chapters, a noun can be the head of a noun phrase and can primarily have the functions of subject or object of a verbal of a clause. Nouns have the following characteristics1: A Morphological Nouns have inflectional suffixes for plural number: one book, two books; Nouns have inflectional suffixes for genitive case: Sarah's book. Many nouns are uncountable, and cannot have a plural form: gold, information, etc. Nouns quite often contain more than one morpheme: compound nouns: bomb + shell, bridge + head, clothes + line nouns with derivational suffixes: sing + er, bright + ness, friend + ship B. Syntactic Nouns can occur as the head of a noun phrase: [a new book about the cold war], [the ugliest person you've ever seen]. Common nouns such as book and person can be modified by many kinds of words both before and after them. Proper nouns like Sarah rarely have any modifiers. C. Semantic Nouns commonly refer to concrete, physical entities (people, objects, substances, etc.): e.g. book, friend, iron. They can also denote abstract entities, such as qualities and states: e.g. freedom, wish, friendship. 5.3.2. Noun classes2 Most common nouns have both a singular and a plural form, with either regular or irregular forms. Nouns are subdivided into the following major categories: common nouns contrast with proper nouns; count nouns contrast with non-count nouns (including mass nouns); concrete nouns contrast with abstract nouns; collective nouns contrast with noncollective nouns. Many abstract nouns are derived from verbs (explanation, actor, receiver, etc.) or from adjectives (wisdom, length, happiness, etc.).

As identified by Biber, Conrad and Leech in The Longman student grammar of spoken and written English . London: Longman, 2002. This section mainly draws on Greenbaum & Quirks A Students Grammar of the English Language, 1990, and Bejan & Bejans Morphology of contemporary English, 2005.

Many words can be recognized as nouns by their suffixes, for example -ion (in action), -er (in reader), -or (in actor), -ness (in business), -ity (in authority), -ment (in department) and -ship (in friendship). Nouns are common (cat, nature, wood, etc. ) or proper (Britain, London, Mary, etc. ). Proper nouns are normally uncountable, but if they are turned into common nouns they borrow some of the features of the latter. Thus, in The Nadia I know would not say that, the proper noun Nadia is preceded by the determinative the, and in The Browns are on vacation , the proper noun takes both the determiner and the plural s. According to the type of referent, common nouns can be concrete (nouns refer to people, places, or things) or abstract (nouns refer to qualities, states, or actions). In reference to their grammatical form, common nouns can be count/countable or noncount/uncountable. Count nouns have both a singular and a plural form and they can be accompanied by determiners that refer to distinctions in number, such as a, one, every, etc. for singular nouns and ten, many, those for plural nouns. Non-count nouns refer to an indivisible mass and are treated as singular. They accept only determiners that do not mark distinctions in number, such as some, much, your, that, etc. Most abstract nouns are non-count. The definite article the can accompany both count and non-count nouns, while the indefinite article a/ an can only precede singular count nouns. Some nouns may be either count or non-count, depending on their meaning; compare He is good at statistics [noncount] and He produced several good statistics [count]. In order to illustrate the conversion of non-count into count nouns, Greenbaum and Quirk (1990) propose the following cases: 1. When the count noun refers to different kinds: The shop has a large selection of cheeses. 2. When the count noun refers to units that are obvious in the situation. Ill have two coffees, please. (= two cups of coffee) Since the two observations are true for the Romanian language as well, natives have few problems to transfer L1 knowledge to English. However, for the Romanian speaker of English, it can be difficult to recognize certain nouns as non-count (for instance, money, information, bread, chocolate, etc.) and use them accordingly. This happens because their correspondents in Romanian are either countable - even if some of them are mass nouns such as informaie informaii, pine pini, spun spunuri, ciocolat ciocolate, etc., or plural, for instance bani meaning a current medium of exchange in the form of coins and banknotes; coins and banknotes collectively, or cunotine as information and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.). Other types of mass nouns (flour, milk, meat, beer, wine, etc.) pose fewer problems because their behaviour regarding number is similar in the two languages. 5.4. The verb

5.4.1. Definition and characteristics3 A verb is the word class/part of speech which describes an action or occurrence or indicates a state of being. The verb is the central element of a sentence (that is to say, as a rule, every sentence has a verb), and its identification is often the most important step in analysing and understanding the meaning of a sentence. (see 4.4.) It is important to always distinguish between verb (word class) and verb phrase (clause constituent). The possibility of confusion is generated by the fact that a verb phrase often consists of a single verb, which is the unitary constituent4 of that particular verb phrase. 5.4.2. Verb classes There are two main classes of verbs: 1. The open class of lexical verbs (also known as main/full verbs - verbs that aren't dependent on other verbs); 2. The closed class of auxiliary verbs (also known as helping verbs). Auxiliaries fall into two subtypes: primary auxiliaries (be, have, and do) function both as lexical verbs and as auxiliaries. When used as auxiliaries, they are function words and have no lexical meaning. They have the same syntactic forms that full verbs have both when used as auxiliaries and when used as full verbs. modal auxiliaries (can, could, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will, and would), although auxiliaries, have lexical meaning (that is to say, they indicate degrees of obligation, necessity, probability, etc.).

3. Another class includes semi-modals and catenative verbs5. 5.4.2.1. Lexical verbs As the unitary constituent of the verb phrase, the lexical/main verb is the central element that determines the functional and meaning relations in a clause. Its valency selects the rest of the elements in the clause. Main verbs must occur in any normal clause or sentence (with the exception of verbless clauses and ellipsis). Lexical verbs have the following characteristics: A Morphological Lexical verbs have different forms signaling tense (present and past), aspect (perfect, progressive), and voice (active and passive). (see 5.2.) Like nouns, several verbs have no suffixes: call, walk, etc.
3

As identified by Biber, Conrad and Leech in The Longman student grammar of spoken and written English . London: Longman, 2002. 4 A constituent is unitary if it has only one part. For example, if a sentence has just one main clause (as is the case with simple and complex sentences) then that one clause is the unitary constituent of the sentence; similarly if a phrase has just one word, then that single word is the unitary constituent of the phrase. (Lunn n.d.) 5 catenative verb = a verb--such as keep, promise, want, seem, and many others--that can link with other verbs to form a chain or series. A catenative verb (also called a chain verb) takes a nonfinite clause as its complement. (Nordquist n.d.)

 Many of the verbs that do have suffixes are of Latin, Greek or French origin; some of verbs were already suffixed when they were borrowed: magnify, agonize, realize. By the addition of certain suffixes, nouns or adjectives can be turned into main verbs: prefix noun base derived verb with suffix assassin, different assassinate, differentiate -ate beauty, class beautify, classify -(i)fy alphabet, apology alphabetize, apologise -ize/-ise height heighten -en prefix adjective base derived verb with suffix active activate -ate simple simplify -(i)fy actual actualize -ize/-ise black, deep blacken, deepen -en Verb prefixes do not normally change the word class, yet they do change the meaning prefix meaning of prefix examples again reabsorb, rebuild, redefine, refinance reopposite, apart disarm, disconnect, discontinue, dislike distoo much, across, beyond overbook, overcome, overeat, overhear overopposite, in reverse unbend, uncouple, unfold, unload, ununpack wrong, poorly misbehave, mishandle, misinform, misbeyond, further outdo, outgrow, outperform, outweigh out Regular verbs have only four morphological forms. These forms involve three suffixes added to a base: form example use base walk infinitive, present tense except 3rd person sg, and subjunctive base +suffix -(e)s walks 3rd person sg present tense base + suffix -ing walking ing-participles (as in progressive aspect) base +suffix ed walked simple past tense and ed-participles/past participle, as in perfect and passive constructions) For most irregular verbs (their number approaches 200 in normal use and exceeds 250 if prefixed forms are counted), the -s form and the -ing participle can be predicted from the base form. Only three forms, known as the principal parts of the verb, show irregularities: the base form: the verb be has eight forms throughout the present tense; the verbs have, do and say have irregular -[e]s forms; defective verbs, such as the modal auxiliaries lack most inflection. past form -ed participle form irregular verbs can be grouped into seven classes according to whether or not three features apply to their principal parts: the past and -ed participles are identical; the base vowel is the same in the other two principal parts;

 Class I base form

the past and -ed participle have inflectional endings. Class II past form -ed part. base form

past form

bend bent mow mowed bent earn earnt shear sheared earnt build built built show showed learn learnt swell swelled learnt have had had smell smelt smelt make made made spoil spoilt spoilt The verbs in bold in the 2nd column also have The past is regular, but the participle has an -n regular variants: earn, earned, earned inflection. All the verbs have regular variants for the participle: mow, mowed, mowed. Class III base form Class IV -ed part.

-ed part. mown shorn shown swollen

-ed part. buy blow blew blown bought bought dream see saw seen dreamt dreamt hear break broke broken heard heard kneel take took taken knelt knelt lose hide hid hidden lost lost lean tear tore torn leant leant say lie lay lain said said leap write wrote written leapt leapt Those in the second column also have regular The participle has an inflection, but not the past. In variants: dream, dreamed, dreamed. some verbs (e.g. blow) the participle has the same vowel as the base; in some (e.g. break) the past and participle have the same vowel; in some (e.g. write) all the vowels are different. Class V base past -ed part. form form burst burst burst fit fit fit hit hit hit hurt hurt hurt let let let rid rid rid sweat sweat sweat wet wet wet All 3 forms are identical. The Class VI base form bleed get dig hold find strike fight win The past Class VII base form begin come sing run

base form

past form

past form

past -ed part. past form -ed part. form bled bled began begun got got came come dug dug sang sung held held ran run found found struck struck fought fought won won and participle are The past forms have the same form

past forms also have regular identical, but there is a change for the base and the participle. Some variants: fit, fitted, fitted. from the base vowel and there verbs also have variants in which the are no inflections. A few verbs in past and participle are identical: sing, this class have regular variants: sung, sung, as well as sing, sang, light, lighted, lighted, as well as sung. light, lit, lit. The full set of five forms appears in the irregular verb speak. 1. base form: speak 2. -s form: speaks 3. -ing participle: speaking 4. past form: spoke 5. -ed participle: spoken Verb lexemes can have a complex form with more than one morpheme (i.e. multi-word verbs and derived verbs). B. Syntactic Lexical verbs often occur on their own, as a single-word verb phrase, and function as the central part of the clause. They can also be preceded by auxiliaries (see 4.4.): C. Semantic Lexical verbs denote actions, processes, and states of affairs that happen or exist in time. Biber, Conrad and Leech (2002, 106-9) distinguish seven semantic categories: activity verbs usually refer to a volitional activity that is, an action performed intentionally by an agent or 'doer'. Activity verbs can be transitive or intransitive, occurring without any object. The most common, in conversation, fiction, newspaper writing, and academic prose combined, are: buy go pay take come leave play try follow make put use get meet run work

bring give move show

communication verbs are a special subcategory of activity verbs that involve communication activities, particularly verbs describing speech and writing. The most common 'communication' verbs in conversation, fiction, newspaper writing, and academic prose combined are: call say tell claim speak thank describe suggest write

ask offer talk

mental verbs refer to mental states and activities. They do not involve physical action. Some of the verbs convey volition; others do not. Mental verbs express a wide range of meanings: think, know love, want see, taste

mental states or processes emotions, attitudes, or desires perceptions

the receiving of communication

read, hear

Many mental verbs are relatively dynamic in meaning, such as decide, discover, study, etc. Other mental verbs are more static in meaning, such as believe, remember, understand, enjoy, fear, hate, prefer, etc. The most common 'mental' verbs in conversation, fiction, newspaper writing, and academic prose combined are: believe hear mean suppose consider know need think expect like read understand feel listen remember want find love see wonder

causative verbs indicate that a person or thing helps to bring about a new state of affairs and often occur with a derived noun as the direct object, which reports the action that was facilitated. Ex.: Do you intend to allow its production? The most common causative verbs are: allow, cause, enable, facilitate, help, let require etc. verbs of occurrence report events that occur without an actor. Ex.: The phenomenon occurs especially at night. The most common verbs of occurrence are especially common, in conversation, fiction, newspaper writing, and academic prose combined: become, change, develop, die, grow, happen, occur. verbs of existence or relationship report a state of existence or a logical relationship that exists between entities.

Some of the most common existence verbs are copular verbs, such as seem and appear. Ex.: He seemed worn out and sad. Other verbs in this class report a state of existence (exist, stay, etc.) or a relationship between entities (contain, include, etc.). Some common existence/relationship verbs are: appear live contain look exist represent include seem indicate stand involve stay

verbs of aspect characterize the stage of progress of an event or activity. Ex.: She started telling him her story

The most common aspect verbs are begin continue keep start stop. 5.4.2.2. Auxiliary verbs From the observation above it is easy to infer that main verbs can be contrasted with auxiliary verbs, and the following characteristics of the auxiliary verbs can be identified: Unlike main verbs, auxiliaries do not have lexical meaning (think of the auxiliaries in Romanian: if one says am mers, he/ she does not express any kind of possession, though

the verb a avea is used!) Auxiliary verbs always come before the main verb. Examples (the main verb is in bold): has read, has been reading, are reading, may have been reading. The same is true about Romanian (a citit, va citi, va fi citind) The primary verbs be, have and do can function as either auxiliary or main verbs. Compare I don't like such things and I don't do such things. In the first example do is used as an auxiliary (operator), and comes before the main verb like, while in the second it is used as both an auxiliary preceding the main verb do, and as a main verb. Auxiliaries are irregular in form. Be, for example, has eight forms: am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been. Have has four forms: has, have, had, having and do has five forms: does, do, did, done, doing. Notice that done and doing cannot be used as auxiliary forms. In Romanian, all the auxiliary verbs (a fi, a avea, a voi, a vrea) are primary verbs, although, when used as auxiliaries, they have reduced flexion, as in the forms of a fi in conjuctiv perfect (fi for all persons s fi mers), of a avea in perfect compus (a instead of are for 3rd person sg, as in el a mers vs el are o carte, etc.), and so on. The primary auxiliaries are different from each other and from the other auxiliaries. They are used for the following forms: be for a. the progressive : was walking b. the passive : was walked have for the perfect : has walked do as the dummy operator : did walk Auxiliaries can only occur together with a main verb (except in cases of ellipsis). When used as auxiliaries, the primary verbs be, have and do are exclusively followed by nonfinite forms of the verb, as in: is working is worked has worked does not work be + present participle be + past participle have + past participle do + not + bare infinitive progressive passive perfect dummy operator

An interesting definition (Hudson n.d.) contrasts auxiliaries, catenatives and operators: An auxiliary verb is a catenative which is also an operator. The author identifies the auxiliary verbs defined by this criterion as follows:

be when followed by a non-finite verb (is working, was chosen, is to go) have when followed by a past participle (have finished) do when followed by an infinitive (did know) will, shall, can, may, must, ought (for some speakers) used, dare and need.

Hudson concludes that an auxiliary verb is a verb that combines two characteristics:

Support: It can support6 another verb. Other distinctions: It allows subject inversion, negation, contraction but it does not allow do-support and may not show subject agreement.

5.4.2.3. Modal verbs In English there are nine central modal verbs: can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would and must. Modal verbs add meanings relating to modality to the lexical verb. Ability (can, could), possibility or permission (can, may), obligation, necessity or likelihood (must, should), prediction, intention or hypothesis (will, would), etc. are examples of modal meanings. One grammatical approach groups all the modal auxiliaries except for must in pairs: will would, can could, may -might, shall -should. Two types of relations can be identified between the members of a modal pair: 1. Since the second member is, historically, the past tense form of the former, it can express a past time reference. Compare I can swim now. [present time reference] and I could swim when I was a child. [past time reference]. 2. In instances such as Can you help me? [present time reference] and Could you help me? [present time reference], there is no difference in what regards the time reference. The variation resides in the degree of politeness of the requests expressed in the two examples. By generalizing this observation, we may say that there is a variation in the degree of politeness, possibility, likelihood etc. as expressed by one or the other of the members of a modal pair. Modal auxiliaries have the following major characteristics: They always function as operators, as in Can you help me? or in I cant, Im sorry. As we can see in the two examples, they are placed before the subject to form questions and before not in negation. (see 2.4.2.) Except for may, modals occur in negative contractions: wont, cant, shant, mustnt, wouldnt, couldnt, mightnt, shouldnt. Like any other auxiliary, modals always come before the main verb: may be working, could have gone. They are always followed by the bare infinitive (in one of its forms) of another verb, for example can be, can have done, can be done, etc. They are defective verbs, that is, they have no other forms, such as -s forms, -ing forms or -ed forms. They can only appear in finite clauses, as in I pray [that you may succeed].
6

They are each followed by a non-finite verb (raining, been, overcharged) which they 'support' in various ways. The term 'auxiliary verb' refers to this support role. (Hudson n.d.)

I pray [for you to may succeed]. Need and dare are dual-function verbs, as they can behave either like modal auxiliaries (You neednt have brought flowers; How dare you?) or like main verbs (You do not need to get there before 9; I didn't dare to say that aloud.). In the auxiliary use, these verbs function as the operator for negation and interrogative. 5.4.2.4. Semi-modals7 Semi-modals (also called semi-auxiliaries/ lexical auxiliary/ periphrastic modals/ marginal modals/quasi-modals) are multiword constructions based on auxiliary verbs that function like modal verbs. The subcategory of semi-modals includes the following structures: be about to, be able to, be going to, be likely to, (had) better, have to, (have) got to, ought to, be supposed to, used to . Some are followed by an infinitive, others by a bare infinitive. Semi-modals can be regarded as equivalents of the modal auxiliaries, because they express meanings that can usually be paraphrased with a modal verb. semi-modal be able to modal can/ could example comment He is able to swim to the other bank of the river. ~ He can swim to the other bank of the river. He is to return next year. ~ He Be to indicates plans and will/ shall will return next year. arrangements, like simple future, like will/shall, but with a slight degree of uncertainty. He is to return next year means that he is likely to return, but it is not quite certain whether the action will actually happen or not. You are to take the floor, Be to may also express orders must whether you like it or not. ~ You that convey the idea of must take the floor, whether you obligation or necessity, almost like it or not like must, but it is not as strong or direct. should/ ought You had better call her at once. No idea of comparison is ~ You should/ ought to call her conveyed by the comparative to at once. better. Its meaning is it would be good/advisable to. Had better expresses strong advice, we use it to tell other people what to do. She had better mind her own Had better may also express a

be to

had better

As identified by Biber, Conrad and Leech in The Longman student grammar of spoken and written English . London: Longman, 2002.

have to and must have got

business. ~ She should/ ought to mind her own business. If we are to finish before noon, we had better hurry. ~ If we must finish before noon, we should/ ought to hurry. I have to report for duty within a week. (= I must report for duty within a week.) I have got to talk to her. (= I have to/must talk to her.) Did you have to do that? (was that necessary?)

threat; the idea of or else is implied. Had better in the main clause can combine with be to in an ifclause, when the main clause expresses a pre-condition Have got to means the same as have to in most situations. It is more common in an informal style.

Most semi-modals are fixed expressions, which cannot be inflected for tense or person. However, some of them, like have to and be going to, are exceptions to this rule (past tense: She had to get him out of there; third-person agreement: I don't think he is going to come.) Some semi-modals can co-occur with a modal verb or another semi-modal (co-occurrence with a modal: They may have to leave soon; co-occurrence with another semi-modal: I'm going to have to charge you extra for that. Sorry!8 Together with dare and need, used to and ought to are on the boundary between the category of the modal auxiliaries and that of lexical verbs, as they have characteristics from both. Thus, they have negative contractions (usedn't and oughtn't) besides the do/did negative and interrogative, but negation in general is quite uncommon with these verbs. Notice that used to and ought to are followed by the to-infinitive: 5.4.2.5. Catenative verbs9 A catenative is a part of the verb phrase which is not among the auxiliaries, but it is followed by another verb (which functions as the main verb in the VP) in the to-infinitive, bare infinitive or present participle/gerund. In He deserves to win the cup, deserve is a catenative verb followed directly by the to-infinitive of win. The verbs in this class are called catenative because of their ability to form chains, as in the (quite extreme) example below. He decided to agree to try practicing playing the guitar every day. Most catenatives accept one form only; a few can take both infinitive and gerund forms, in which case sometimes there is a difference in the meaning of the two structures. Compare
8

According to www.phrasemix.com, this structure is used to talk about something that you need to do, but which might annoy your listener. It is similar to going to need to, but friendlier-sounding. Going to have to is also used to talk about things that you have to do in the future. Just a heads up - we're going to have to meet soon. 9 As described by Hasselgrd, in Glossary of grammatical terms used in English Grammar: Theory and Use (2nd edition) and Verbs and verb phrases.

She stopped to look at the brochure. (= stopped with the purpose of looking at the brochure) and She stopped looking at the brochure. (= ceased the activity of looking at the brochure) Catenatives form a class with fuzzy edges between auxiliary and lexical verb. They resemble auxiliaries in having little meaning and in supporting a main verb in a verb-phrase, and lexical verbs in not being an obligatory part of any grammatical construction (i.e. a catenative verb is not obligatory in the formal marking of tense, aspect or voice.). They are like main verbs in requiring the do operator in questions and negative statements (Compare Were they working? and Did they keep working?)

AUXILIARIES

CATENATIVES

LEXICAL VERBS

As you can see in the tables below, catenative verbs may have aspectual meanings, denoting the start, unfolding, or end of an action (e.g., stop running, get to like, continue to read), or modal meanings such as certainty and usuality (seem to like, appear to be, tend to occur). Aspectual catenatives (marking an activity as being in its initial, middle or final stage): catenative keep start stop get tend aspectual meaning continuous activity initiated activity ended activity initiated activity habitual activity example They kept walking. They started walking. They stopped walking. We should get moving. We tend to stay too long.

Modalizing catenatives (making reservations as to truth value; hedging expressions): catenative modal meaning seem probability (judging from appearances) example These young women are not the angels they seem to be. The arguments seem to support a different conclusion. probability They appear to have changed their minds. likelihood (according He was supposed to be in court to expectation) that morning. Nothing on four legs was supposed to be faster than a lion over a short distance. obligation They're not supposed to look at women.

appear suppose

suppose

assume

possibility

They're assumed to be dangerous.

The catenative get may be an alternative marker of the passive voice (get married, get paid), thus serving the same function as the grammatical auxiliary be. Danny and Sheila got married. The car got wrecked in the crash. Unlike auxiliaries, catenatives require do-insertion (or the support of another finite operator) in negative and interrogative Did Danny and Sheila get married? not Got Danny and Sheila married? Be careful don't get mugged! not Be careful get not mugged! A comprehensive list of catenative verbs and example sentences can be found in the Appendix: English catenative verbs (http://en. wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix%3AEnglish_catenative_verbs) 5.4.2.6. Verbs vs. verb phrases Hasselgrd (verbs and verb phrases n.d.) contrasts verbs and verb phrases in the following sets of examples, and consequently the relation between the two classes of constituents becomes obvious: lexical verb on its own auxiliary + lexical verb Danny plays the guitar. Sheila looked scruffy. Danny is playing the guitar. Danny must have been playing the guitar. Sheila was looking scruffy. Danny kept playing the guitar. Danny began to play the guitar. Sheila tends to look scruffy. He played down the fact that he had failed his exam. He played it down. He looked her address up in the personnel file. Sheila only played at being a poet. (She never actually wrote anything.) Sheila can look after herself. They played around with the headline for a while, to make it more catchy. They are looking forward to the week-end. Sheila didn't take any notice of Danny. He made a mess of his audition.

catenative + lexical verb

verb + adverbial particle (phrasal verb) verb + preposition (prepositional verb) verb + particle + preposition (phrasal prepositional verb) other multi-word combinations

Exercises http://www.englishpage.com/gerunds/index.htm http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbtenseintro.html http://www.agendaweb.org/index.php#.UqrA8yeupB4