Denoting the name (common name) of a whole class of objects and phenomena that have a certain common set of features, and naming 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 linguistic concept by the name (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:

1. 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.
2. Names guns(instrumenti) having the same suffixes with
3. names places(loci);
4. Nouns collective(collective)
5. diminutives
6. 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: noun declension is no different from adjective declension 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, compound adjectives were formed from nouns, for example, the Greek ροδοδάκτυλος "rosy-fingered" (prop. "pink finger") or Latin magnanimus "magnanimous" (prop. "great spirit"), German barfuss "barefoot" (prop. "bare foot" ), Church Slavonic chrnovlas “black-haired” (prop. “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 of as something inherent in another object - 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”).

Each person daily uses several hundred nouns in his speech. However, not everyone will be able to answer the question of which category a particular word belongs to: proper names or common nouns, and whether there is a difference between them. Meanwhile, not only written literacy depends on this simple knowledge, but also the ability to correctly understand what is read, because often, only by reading a word, you can understand whether it is a name or just the name of a thing.

what is this

Before you figure out which nouns are called proper and which are common nouns, it is worth remembering what it is.

Nouns are words that answer the questions "What?", "Who?" and denoting the name of things or persons (“table”, “person”), they change according to declensions, genders, numbers and cases. In addition, words related to this part of speech are proper / common nouns.

The concept of about and own

Except for rare exceptions, all nouns belong to the category of either proper or common nouns.

Common nouns include summarized names of homogeneous things or phenomena that may differ from each other in some features, but will still be called one word. For example, the noun "toy" is a common noun, although it generalizes the names of various objects: cars, dolls, bears, and other things from this group. In Russian, as in most other languages, common nouns are always written with a small letter.

Ethnonyms

As mentioned above, nouns are proper and common nouns. So far, linguists have not yet come to a consensus on the relationship between these two categories. There are 2 common views on this question: according to one, there is a clear dividing line between common nouns and proper nouns; according to another, the dividing line between these categories is not absolute due to the frequent transition of nouns from one category to another. Therefore, there are so-called "intermediate" words that do not belong to either proper or common nouns, although they have signs of both categories. These nouns include ethnonyms - words meaning the names of peoples, nationalities, tribes and other similar concepts.

Common nouns: examples and types

In the vocabulary of the Russian language, there are most common nouns. All of them are usually divided into four types.

1. Specific - denote objects or phenomena that can be counted (people, birds and animals, flowers). For example: "adult", "child", "thrush", "shark", "ash", "violet". Specific common nouns almost always have plural and singular forms and are combined with quantitative numerals: “an adult - two adults”, “one violet - five violets”.

2. Abstract - denote concepts, feelings, objects that cannot be counted: "love", "health", "wit". Most often, this type of common noun is used only in the singular. If, for one reason or another, a noun of this kind has acquired the plural (“fear - fears”), it loses its abstract meaning.

3. Real - denote substances that are homogeneous in composition, do not have separate objects: chemical elements (mercury), food (pasta), medicines (citramon) and other similar concepts. Real nouns are not countable, but they can be measured (kilogram of pasta). Words of this type of common noun have only one form of number: either plural or singular: “oxygen” is singular, “cream” is plural.

4. Collective - these are nouns, meaning a set of objects or persons of the same type, as a single, inseparable whole: "brotherhood", "humanity". Nouns of this kind are not countable and are used only in the singular form. However, you can use the words “a little”, “a few”, “little” and the like with them: a lot of children, how many infantry and others.

Proper nouns: examples and types

Depending on the lexical meaning, the following types of proper nouns are distinguished:

1. Anthroponyms - names, surnames, pseudonyms, nicknames and nicknames of people: Vasilyeva Anastasia,
2. Theonyms - names and names of deities: Zeus, Buddha.
3. Zoonyms - nicknames and nicknames of animals: dog Barbos, cat Marie.
4. All types of toponyms - geographical names, cities (Volgograd), reservoirs (Baikal), streets (Pushkin) and so on.
5. Aeronautonyms - the name of various spacecraft and aircraft: the Vostok spacecraft, the Mir interorbital station.
6. Names of works of art, literature, cinema, TV programs: "Mona Lisa", "Crime and Punishment", "Vertical", "Yeralash".
7. Names of organizations, websites, brands: Oxford, Vkontakte, Milavitsa.
8. Names of holidays and other public events: Christmas, Independence Day.
9. Names of unique natural phenomena: Hurricane Isabel.
10. Names of unique buildings and objects: cinema "Rodina", sports complex "Olympic".

Proper to common nouns and vice versa

Since the language is not something abstract and is constantly influenced by both external and internal factors, words often change their category: proper ones turn into common nouns, and common nouns turn into proper nouns. Examples of this are quite common. So the natural phenomenon "frost" - from a common noun turned into its own noun, the surname Frost. The process of transition of common nouns into proper ones is called onymization.

At the same time, the name of the famous German physicist who was the first to discover X-rays, in the colloquial speech of the Russian language, has long turned into the name of the study of something with the help of the “X-ray” radiation discovered by him. Such a process is called appellation, and such words are called eponyms.

How to distinguish

In addition to semantic differences, there are also grammatical ones that allow you to clearly distinguish between proper nouns and common nouns. The Russian language is quite practical in this regard. The category of common nouns, unlike proper ones, as a rule, has both plural and singular forms: “artist - artists”.

At the same time, another category is almost always used only in the singular: Picasso is the artist's surname, singular. However, there are exceptions when proper nouns can be used in the plural. Examples of this name, originally used in the plural: the village of Bolshiye Kabany. In this case, these proper nouns are often devoid of the singular: the mountains of the Carpathians.
Sometimes proper names can be used in the plural if they denote different persons or phenomena, but with identical names. For example: There are three Xenias in our class.

How do you spell

If everything is quite simple with writing common nouns: they are all written with a small letter, and otherwise you should follow the usual rules of the Russian language, then another category has some nuances that you need to know in order to correctly write proper nouns. Examples of incorrect spelling can often be found not only in the notebooks of negligent schoolchildren, but also in the documents of adults and respectable people.

To avoid such mistakes, you should learn a few simple rules:

1. All proper names, without exception, are capitalized, especially when it comes to the nicknames of legendary heroes: Richard the Lionheart. If a given name, surname or place name consists of two or more nouns, regardless of whether they are written separately or with a hyphen, each of these words must begin with a capital letter. An interesting example is the nickname of the main villain of the Harry Potter epic - the Dark Lord. Afraid to call him by his first name, the heroes called the evil wizard "He Who Must Not Be Named". In this case, all 4 words are capitalized, as this is the nickname of the character.

2. If there are articles, particles and other service particles of speech in the name or title, they are written with a small letter: Albrecht von Graefe, Leonardo da Vinci, but Leonardo DiCaprio. In the second example, the part "di" is capitalized, because in the original language it is written together with the surname Leonardo DiCaprio. This principle applies to many proper names of foreign origin. In eastern names, the particles “bey”, “zul”, “zade”, “pasha”, and the like, indicating the social status, regardless of whether they stand in the middle of the word or are written with a small letter at the end. The same principle applies to spelling proper names with particles in other languages. German "von", "zu", "auf"; Spanish "de"; Dutch "van", "ter"; French "des", "du", "de la".

3. The particles “San-”, “Sen-”, “Saint-”, “Ben-” located at the beginning of the surname of foreign origin are written with a capital and a hyphen (Saint-Gemen); after O, there is always an apostrophe and the next letter is capitalized (O'Henry). The part "Mac-" should be written in turn with a hyphen, but often it is written together due to the approximation of the spelling to the original: McKinley, but MacLane.

Having dealt once with this rather simple topic (what is a noun, types of nouns and examples), you can once and for all save yourself from stupid, but rather unpleasant spelling mistakes and the need to constantly look into the dictionary to check yourself.

) a whole group of objects that have common features, and naming these objects according to their belonging to this category: article, house, a computer etc.

An extensive group of common names are terms of a scientific and technical nature, including terms of physical geography, toponymy, linguistics, art, etc. If the spelling sign of all proper names is their spelling with a capital letter, then common nouns are written with a lowercase letter.

The transition of the onym to appellative without affixation in linguistics is called appeal (deonymization) . For example:

• (English Charles Boycott → English to boycott);
• peninsula Labrador → labrador (stone);
• Newfoundland → Newfoundland (dog breed) .

The transition of a common name to a proper name may be accompanied by the loss of its former meaning, for example:

• right hand (from other Russian. desn "right") → river "Desna". The Desna is a left tributary of the Dnieper.
• Velikaya → river Velikaya (a small river in the Russian North).

A common noun can denote not only a category of objects, but also any individual object within this category. The latter happens when:

1. The individual characteristics of the subject do not matter. For example: " If the dog is not teased, it will not bite."- the word" dog "refers to any dog, and not to any particular one.
2. In the described situation, only one item of this category. For example: " Meet me at the corner at noon”- the interlocutors know which corner will serve as a meeting point.
3. Individual attributes of an object are described by additional definitions. For example: " I remember the day I first set sail» - a specific day stands out among other days.

The boundary between common nouns and proper names is not unshakable: common nouns can turn into proper names in the form of names and nicknames ( onymization), and proper names - into common nouns ( deonymization).

Onimization(transition appellative in onym):

1. kalita (bag) → Ivan Kalita;

Deonymization. The following types of such transitions are noted:

1. person's name → person; Pechora (river) → Pechora (city)
2. person's name → thing: Kravchuk → kravchuchka, Colt → colt;
3. place name → item: Kashmir → cashmere (fabric);
4. person's name → action: Boycott → boycott;
5. place name → action: Earth → land;
6. person's name → unit of measurement: Ampere → ampere , Henry → henry , Newton → newton ;

Proper names, which have become common nouns, are called eponyms, sometimes they are used in a playful sense (for example " Aesculapius" - a doctor, "Schumacher" - a lover of fast driving, etc.).

A vivid example of the transformation before our eyes own name in eponym is the word kravchuchka - the name of a handcart, widespread in Ukraine, named after the 1st president Leonid Kravchuk, during whose reign the shuttle business became widespread, and the word kravchuchka in everyday life, it practically supplanted other names for a handcart.

§one. General characteristics of the noun

The noun is an independent significant part of speech.

1. grammatical meaning- "thing".
Nouns are words that answer the questions:
Who? , What?

2. Morphological features:

• constants - common noun / proper, animate / inanimate, gender, type of declension;
• changeable - number, case.

3. Syntactic role in a sentence any, especially often: subject and object.

The kids love the holidays.

As an appeal and introductory words, the noun is not a member of the sentence:

- Sergey!- my mother calls me from the yard.

(Sergey- address)

Unfortunately, it's time to go do your homework.

(Unfortunately- introductory word)

§2. Morphological features of nouns

Nouns have a set of morphological features. Some of them are permanent (or immutable). Others, on the contrary, are non-permanent (or changeable). Unchangeable signs refer to the whole word as a whole, and changeable to the forms of the word. So noun Natalia- animated, own, female, 1 cl. In whatever form it may be, these signs will be preserved. Noun Natalia may be in the form of and many others. numbers, in different cases. Number and case are inconstant signs of nouns. In the illustration, dotted lines lead to such non-permanent or variable morphological features. It is necessary to learn to distinguish which signs are permanent and which are non-permanent.

§3. Common nouns - proper nouns

This is the division of nouns according to the features of the meaning. Common nouns denote homogeneous objects, i.e. any object from their series, and proper nouns call a separate specific object.
Compare nouns:

• child, country, river, lake, fairy tale, turnip - common nouns
• Alexey, Russia, Volga, Baikal, "Repka" - own

Common nouns are varied. Their ranks by value:

• specific: table, computer, document, mouse, notebook, fishing rod
• abstract (abstract): surprise, joy, fear, happiness, miracle
• real: iron, gold, water, oxygen, milk, coffee
• collective: youth, foliage, nobility, spectator

Proper nouns include names of people, nicknames of animals, geographical names, names of works of literature and art, etc.: Alexander, Sasha, Sashenka, Zhuchka, Ob, Ural, "Teenager", "Gingerbread Man" etc.

§4. Animation - inanimateness

Animate nouns call "living" objects, and inanimate - not "living".

• Animated: mother, father, child, dog, ant, Kolobok (hero of a fairy tale, acting as a living person)
• Inanimate: orange, ocean, war, lilac, program, toy, delight, laughter

For morphology, it is important that

• in plural in animate nouns
  Near the school, I saw familiar girls and boys (vin. pad. = born. pad.), and in inanimate nouns wine form. pad. matches the shape. pad.: I love books and films (vin. pad. = im. pad.)
• in the singular for animate masculine nouns wine form. pad. matches the form. fall:
  The fox saw Kolobok (vin. fall. = genus. fall.), and for inanimate nouns of masculine gender wine form. pad. matches the shape. pad.: I baked a gingerbread man (wine. pad. = im. pad.)

The rest of the nouns have the form im., vin. and genus. cases are different.

Means, sign of inanimateness can be determined not only based on the meaning, but also on the set of word endings.

§5. Genus

gender of nouns is a permanent morphological feature. Nouns do not change by gender.

There are three genders in Russian: male, female and average. The sets of endings for nouns of different genders differ.
In animate nouns, the reference to the masculine or feminine gender is motivated by gender, since the words denote male or female persons: father - mother, brother - sister, husband - wife, man - woman, boy - girl etc. The grammatical sign of gender correlates with gender.
For inanimate nouns, the belonging of the word to one of the three genders is not motivated. The words ocean, sea, river, lake, pond- different gender, and the gender is not determined by the meaning of the words.

The morphological indicator of the genus is the endings.
If the ending word has:

a, y or a, oh, e in the singular and s, ov, am, s or ow, ah, ah in plural , then it is a masculine noun

a, s, e, y, oh, e in the singular and s, am or s, ami, ah in the plural, it is a feminine noun

oh, a, u, oh, om, e in the singular and ah, ah, ah, ah, ah in the plural, it is a neuter noun.

Do all nouns belong to one of the three genders?

No. There is a small group of amazing nouns. They are interesting in that they can refer to both males and females. These are the words: smart girl, glutton, dormouse, greedy, crybaby, ignorant, ignorant, wicked, bully, slob, wicked, muddler, kopush, daredevil etc. The form of such words coincides with the form of feminine words: they have the same set of endings. But the syntactic compatibility is different.
In Russian you can say:
She is so smart! AND: He is so smart! The meaning of the gender of an animate person can be found out by the form of a pronoun (as in our example) or an adjective, or a verb in the past tense: Sonya woke up. AND: Sonya woke up. Such nouns are called common nouns.

Common nouns do not include words that name professions. You may already know that many of these are masculine nouns: doctor, driver, engineer, economist, geologist, philologist etc. But they can designate both male and female persons. My mother is a good doctor. My father is a good doctor. Even if the word names a female person, then adjectives and verbs in the past tense can be used in both masculine and feminine: The doctor came. AND: The doctor came.

How to determine the gender of immutable words?

There are invariable nouns in the language. All of them are borrowed from other languages. In Russian, they have a gender. How to determine the genus? It's easy if you understand what the word means. Let's look at examples:

Monsieur - madam- in words denoting an animated person, gender matches gender.

Kangaroo, chimpanzee- words for animals male.

Tbilisi, Sukhumi- words - city names - male.

Congo, Zimbabwe- words - names of states - neuter.

Mississippi, Yangtze- words - names of rivers - female.

Coat, muffler- words denoting inanimate objects are more often neuter.

Are there any exceptions? There is. Therefore, it is recommended to pay attention to unchangeable words and remember how they are used. The gender is expressed not by the ending (indeclinable words have no endings), but by the form of other words that are related to the unchangeable noun in meaning and grammatically. These can be adjectives, pronouns or verbs in the past tense. For example:

Mississippi wide and full.

Short adjectives in the form of f.r. indicate that the word Mississippi zh.r.

§6. declination

declination is a type of word change. Nouns change in number and case. Number and case are variable morphological features. Depending on what forms the word has in different numbers and cases, in the totality of all possible forms, nouns belong to one of the declensions.

Nouns have three declensions: 1st, 2nd and 3rd. The vast majority of Russian nouns are nouns of the 1st, 2nd or 3rd declension. The type of declension is a constant, unchanging morphological feature of nouns.

The 1st declension includes feminine and masculine words with endings a, I in its original form.
Examples: mom, dad, grandfather, water, earth, Anna, Anya, lecture - ending [a].

The 2nd declension includes masculine words with zero ending and neuter gender with endings about, e in its original form.
Examples: father, brother, house, Alexander, sea, lake, building - ending [e] , genius, Alexey.

The 3rd declension includes null-ending feminine words in its original form.
Examples: mother, mouse, night, news, rye, lie.

initial form- this is the form of the word in which it is usually fixed in dictionaries. For nouns, it is the nominative singular form.

Pay attention to the words traditionally called nouns on ia, ie, uy : lecture, building, genius.

What is the correct ending for these words?

Do you remember that the letters I and e, which are written at the end of such feminine and neuter nouns after vowels, and the letter and - vowel represent two sounds? Lecture- [i'a], building- [i’e], and the sound [i’] is the last consonant of the base. So, in words like lecture ending [a], in words like building- [e], and in words like genius- null ending.

So the feminine nouns are: lecture, station, demonstration belong to the 1st declension, and masculine: genius and middle: building- to the 2nd.

Another group of words requires commentary. These are the so-called neuter nouns me , the words path and child. These are inflected nouns.

Inflected nouns- these are words that have endings characteristic of forms of different declensions.
There are few such words. All of them are very ancient. Some of them are common in today's speech.

List of nouns on me: stirrup, tribe, seed, burden, udder, crown, time, name, flame, banner.

For their spelling, see All spelling. Spelling of nouns

§7. Number

Number- this is a morphological feature that is changeable for some nouns and unchanged, constant for others.
The vast majority of Russian nouns change in number. For example: home - at home, girl - girls, elephant - elephants, night - nights. Nouns that change in number have both singular and plural forms and endings corresponding to these forms. For a number of nouns, the singular and plural forms differ not only in endings, but also in the stem. For example: man - people, child - children, kitten - kittens.

A smaller part of Russian nouns does not change in numbers, but has the form of only one number: either singular or plural.

Singular nouns:

• collective: nobility, children
• real: gold, milk, curdled milk
• abstract (or abstract): greed, anger, kindness
• some of their own, namely: geographical names: Russia, Suzdal, Petersburg

Plural nouns:

• collective: shoots
• real: cream, cabbage soup
• abstract (or abstract): chores, elections, twilight
• some own, namely geographical names: Carpathians, Himalayas
• some specific (objective), watches, sledges, as well as a group of nouns denoting objects that consist of two parts: skis, skates, glasses, gates

Remember:

Most things denoted by nouns that have only the form of a singular or plural person cannot be counted.
For such nouns, the number is an invariable morphological feature.

§eight. case

case- this is a non-permanent, changeable morphological feature of nouns. There are six cases in Russian:

1. Nominative
2. Genitive
3. Dative
4. Accusative
5. Instrumental
6. Prepositional

You need to firmly know the case questions, with the help of which it is determined in which case the noun is. Since, as you know, nouns are animate and inanimate, there are two questions for each case:

• I.p. - who what?
• R.p. - who?, what?
• D.p. - to whom; to what?
• V.p. - who?, what?
• etc. - who?, what?
• P.p. - (About who about what?

You see that for animate nouns the questions of win.p. and genus. etc., and for the inanimate - to them. p. and wine. P.
In order not to be mistaken and correctly determine the case, always use both questions.

For example: I see an old park, a shady alley and a girl and a young man walking along it.
I see (who?, what?) the park(vin. p.), alley(vin. p.), girl(vin. p.), human(vin. p.).

Do all nouns change by case?

No, not all. Nouns that are called invariable do not change.

Cockatoo (1) sits in a cage in a store. I approach the cockatoo (2) . This is a big beautiful parrot. I look at the cockatoo (3) with interest and think: - What do I know about the cockatoo (4)? I don't have a cockatoo (5) . With cockatoo (6) interesting.

Word cockatoo met in this context 6 times:

• (1) who?, what? - cockatoo- I.p.
• (2) I approach (to) whom ?, what? - (k) cockatoo- D.p.
• (3) look (at) whom?, what? - (to) cockatoo- V.p.
• (4) know (about) whom?, what? -( o) cockatoo- P.p.
• (5) no one?, what? - cockatoo- R.p.
• (6) wondering (with) whom?, what? - (with cockatoo)- etc.

In different cases, the form of immutable nouns is the same. But the case is easily determined. Case questions, as well as other members of the sentence, help with this. If such a noun has a definition expressed by an adjective, pronoun, numeral or participle, i.e. word that changes in cases, then it will be in the form of the same case as the invariable noun itself.

Example: How much can you talk about this cockatoo?- (about) who?. how? - P.p.

§nine. The syntactic role of nouns in a sentence

The mother is sitting by the window. She leafs through a magazine, looks at photographs of people and nature. My mother is a geography teacher. "Mom," I call her.

Mother - subject

Near the window - circumstance

Magazine- addition

Photo- addition

Of people- definition

nature- definition

Mother- subject

Teacher- predicate

Geography- definition

Mum- appeals, as well as introductory words, prepositions, conjunctions, particles are not members of the sentence.

test of strength

Check your understanding of the contents of this chapter.

Final test

1. What nouns denote individual specific objects, and not groups of homogeneous objects?

   • proper names
   • Common nouns

2. Which group of nouns has the most variety of meanings?

   • proper names
   • Common nouns

3. Is animateness-inanimateness expressed grammatically: by a set of endings?

4. How can you find out the gender of a noun?

   • By value
   • By compatibility with other words (adjectives, pronouns, past tense verbs) and by endings

5. What are the names of nouns that have endings characteristic of different declensions?

   • Indeclinable
   • Differing

6. What is the sign of the number of nouns good, evil, envy?

   • Permanent (immutable)
   • non-permanent (changing)