 |
|
Morphological Categories of the Noun
The only morphological category of the noun which is almost always marked in present-day English is that of number. Like in Ukrainian, it is mostly realised synthetically, i.e. through zero and marked inflexions respectively. Eg: child — children, ox — oxen, and correspondingly baths, cargos, jubilees, bushes, watches, countries, heroes/ vetoes, etc. An irregularity can be observed in the position of the English inflexion -s in various compounds, eg: take-off = take-offs, sit-in = sit-ins, forget-me-not = forget-me-nots, merry-go-round = merry-gorounds, Commander-in-chief = Commanders-in chief; passer-by = passers-by. Completely allomorphic, i.e. pertained only to the English language is the formation of plural number by way of sound interchange (ablaut) as in the following seven English nouns: foot — feet, tooth — teeth, goose — geese; man — men, woman — women; louse — lice, mouse — mice.
A few simple life nouns have in English one and the same form for singular and plural (cf. grouse, sheep, deer, swine, plaice). Usually, these nouns also have the zero marked plural form: carp, pike, trout, deer, salmon. Apart from the genuinely English there are some borrowed noun inflexions. These are Latin: -a- -ae: alga — algae, larva — larvae; -us- -i: stimulus — stimuli, terminus — termini; -um- -a: curriculum — curricula, erratum — errata, etc. Several Greek bor- rowings preserve their singular and plural inflexions as well: -is -----es (analysis — analyses, basis — bases, ellipsis — ellipses) and -on---- a (criterion — criteria, phenomenon — phenomena), though some nouns often take regular English plural forms (cf. memorandums, ganglions, solos, tempos, metropolises, etc.). Unlike English, Ukrainian number inflexions are partly predetermined by the declension groups to which the nouns are allotted, and partly by the gender of nouns and final consonant or vowel, which can respectively be hard, soft or mixed (sibilant). Moreover, many Ukrainian nouns have both number oppositions marked. The third and fourth declensions nouns in Ukrainian may also have hard, soft and sibilant (шиплячі) final consonants. Their singular and plural number oppositions are as follows: in the III declension: й — і: мати — матері, 0 — і: вість — вісті, тінь — тіні, піч — печі, матір — матері. In the IV declension: а — /т/а: дівча — дівчата, курча — курчата, лоша — лошата, я— л/н/т+я: ім'я — імена, маля — малята, теля — телята, ягня — ягнята.
Present-day Ukrainian has no such variety of inflexions which are all of consonantal nature as the English language has (cf. -s/-es, -ren/- en).The major allomorphic feature in the system of noun categories is the existence in Ukrainian (as in Russian and Byelorussian) of dual number (двоїна), which is often mixed up with the plural or replaced by it by many Ukrainians. The nouns express dual number only in connection with the numeral adjuncts two, three and four. Typologically isomorphic, on the other hand, is the existence inEnglish and Ukrainian of the classes of singularia and pluralia tantum nouns mostly expressing quantity. The singularia tantum include some semantic groups of mainly common nouns which rarely denote singular notions like 1) parts of the world: the North, the South, the East, the West, the North-West the North-East (північ, південь, захід, схід, північний захід), etc. The great majority of singularia tantum nouns are names of materials: iron, copper, snow, milk, bread; срібло, золото, сніг, хліб, сіль, молоко, etc. These and other nouns in both contrasted languagesdenote plurality of substances and things, whereas abstract notions have a singular expression of number. Nouns of this semantic class are especially amply represented in Ukrainian where there may be singled out the following subclasses of them: a) derivatives formed with the help of the suffixes -ств-о (-цтв-о):воїнство, селянство, студентст- во, козацтво; b) nouns formed with the help of suffixes -я(j)+(а):ли- стя, колоддя, гілля, пруття, колосся, волосся, вороняччя, струччя; с) nouns formed with the help of the suffix -н-я: комарня, мурашня, пташня, офіцерня; d) nouns formed with the help of the suffix -в-а: братва, дітва, грошва, мишва, мурашва; е) nouns formed with the help of the suffix -от-а:жінота, парубота, біднота, дрібнота, etc.; f) nouns formed with the help of the suffixes -инн-я (-овинн-я):кар- топлиння, гарбузиння, кукурудзиння, бобовиння; g) nouns formed with the help of the suffixes -ин-а (-овин-а):дичина, садовина, ярина, h) nouns formed with the help of the suffixes -ник-няк:сли- вник, липняк, осичник, вишняк, підосичник, etc. Apart from these there are some foreign nouns with the suffixes - yp-a (професура, адвокатура, мускулатура, etc.); nouns with the suffix ик-a (-ік-а, -атик-а):символіка, проблематика, синоніміка. This group also includes nouns with the suffixes -ет, -ат:генералі- тет, імунітет, секретаріат, плагіат and singularia tantum nouns with the suffix -іан-a: Шевченкіана, Шекспіріана and some others.
It should be emphasised that far from all Ukrainian singularia tantum nouns have corresponding equivalents within the same semantic groups in English and respectively in Ukrainian. Therefore the main classes of singularia tantum nouns are of isomorphic nature, though their representation is not always equal in the contrasted languages. Thus, there exists no identity between the Ukrainian collective nouns ярина (spring crops), озимина (winter crops), зілля (herbs), бадилля (potato leaves) which are pluralia tantum in English. Neither are there corresponding singularia tantum equivalents in English to the Ukrainian nouns formed with the help of the suffixes -н-я (офіцерня, комарня), -ник, -няк(сливник, виш- няк) and -в-а (братва, дітва) whose corresponding equivalents in English are nouns in plural (officers, mice, kids/ children) or in singular - cherry/plum trees orchard, lime-trees grove, etc. No complete coincidence can be observed in the semantic classes of the pluralia tantum nouns in English and Ukrainian where common lexico-semantic classes are not completely the same either. Completely coincide only nouns belonging to the so-called summation plurals (scissors, tongs, skates, shorts, trousers: ножиці, обценьки, тере- зи, шорти, штани, окуляри, etc. Besides, common are also the pluralia tantum nouns belonging to the semantic group of geographic names: Athens, the Netherlands, the Bahamas, the Andes; Афі- ни/Атени, Нідерланди, Карпати, Анди, Бровари, Лубни, Суми, etc.
3) Nouns denoting remnants are only partly common too. They are: scraps, leavings, remains (of food), siftings, sweepings; висівки, не- допитки, перебірки, одвійки, помиї, вишкрібки,недоїдки, etc. Not always coinciding, however, are nouns denoting in English and Ukrainian some abstract notions (contents, goings-on, means, manners, savings; злидні, манери, надра, заощадження) and names of some games which are not always the same in the contrasted languages either, eg: cards, billiards, drafts, darts, skittles (карти, шахи, шашки, кеш). Among these are the nouns більярд and барак which belong to common class nouns in Ukrainian. Consequently, a number of nouns may have plural meaning in English and singular meaning in Ukrainian or vice versa as: barracks, goods, customs, works, suds, police/ militia, arms, gymnastics, etc., their Ukrainian equivalents being казарма, товар/майно/добро, мито, поліція/міліція, зброя, фізку- льтура, etc. Ukrainian plurals вершки, дріжджі, дрова, гроші, on the other hand, have singularia tantum equivalents in English (cream, yeast, firewood, money, etc.). Some semantic classes of pluralia tantum nouns are more numerous in Ukrainian, than in English. Among them are, for example, nouns denoting such actions as проводи (seeing-off), вхідчини (house-warming) or monetary notions as фінанси (finance), ресурси, кошти (means); no pluralia tantum equivalents have such Ukrainian notions as дрова (firewood), вершки (cream), одвійки, дріжджі (yeast). Neither has present-day English pluralia tantum equivalents to such notions as посиденьки, походеньки, вечірниці, витребеньки, побігеньки, (пі)жмурки, пересміхи, хвастощі, пустощі, гульбощі, ласощі, прикрощі, мудрощі, ревнощі, скупощі and others. Consequently, present-day Ukrainian seems to have a larger number of both the singularia and pluralia tantum nouns in some semantic classes of this part of speech, than the English language has.