All words in the English language are divided into different parts of speech. One of the parts of speech are nouns (noun - nouns), which play one of the most important roles in speech. This part of speech serves to designate phenomena, living beings, objects, abstractions, materials, substances, etc.

Classification.

English nouns are common (common noun - common nouns) and own (proper noun - proper nouns). Proper names are surnames, names of people, nicknames of animals, names of months, days of the week, holidays, geographical names, names of magazines, books, performances, newspapers, etc. Common nouns can have an abstract (abstract), specific (concrete), real (material) and collective (collective) character. All proper names are capitalized, and common nouns are capitalized, for example: John Adams - John Adams (proper noun), Dallas - Dallas (proper noun), "The Catcher in the Rye" - "The Catcher in the Rye" (proper noun), Saturday - Saturday (proper noun), June - June (proper noun), feeling - feeling (abstract common noun), wood - wood (material common noun), plate - plate (concrete common noun), humanity - mankid ( collective common noun).

Such a quality of nouns as - determines the presence of a singular - plural. Both numbers have countable nouns; plural forms do not have uncountable nouns, for example: milk - milk (uncountable noun), desk - desk (countable noun). A number of English names (countable nouns) have only a single (singular) number, and some of them are used only in a plural (plural) number, for example: humanity, human race - humanity (uncountable noun, only singular); trousers, pants - trousers (only plural). To reflect a certain number of uncountable nouns in speech, words or phrases specially provided for this are used, for example: wine - wine (uncountable noun) / a lot of wine - a lot of wine.

Countablenouns form plural forms according to the following rules:

• In the standard case, “-s” is simply added to the stem of the name in the singular, for example: mountain / mountains - mountain / mountains, verb / verbs - verb / verbs. However, it should be noted that the presence of "-s" does not in all cases mean the fact that the word is in the plural form. The form of such words as, for example, mathematics - mathematics, physics - physics, is a singular.
• If -f / -fe is present at the end of the stem, the specified letter / letter combination is replaced by -ves, for example: life / lives - life / lives.
• In cases with the letters “-x”, “-ss”, “-ch”, “-s”, “-sh”, the plural form receives an additional vowel at the end, that is, the standard ending “-s” turns into “-es” , for example: fox / foxes - fox / foxes, glass / glasses - glass / glasses, match / matches - match / matches.
• If there is “-y” at the end of the stem, and there is a consonant letter before it, then when the plural form is formed, this consonant is replaced by “-ies”, for example: boundary / boundaries. After the vowels, “-y” does not undergo any changes, for example: toy / toys - toy / toys, army / armies - army / armies.
• When “-o” is at the end of the stem of the name, “-es” is added to form the plural form, for example: tomato / tomatoes - tomato / tomatoes, torpedo / torpedoes - torpedo - torpedoes.
• Several English words, when moving from singular to plural, demonstrate a change in the root vowel and are subject to memorization: mouse / mice - mouse / mice, woman / women - woman / women, foot / feet - foot / feet, bull / bulls - ox / oxen, man / people - person / people, child / children - child / children, goose / geese - goose / geese, man / men - man / men, tooth / teeth - tooth / teeth.
• For individual names, the plural and singular forms are identical, for example: deer / deer - deer, sheep / sheep - sheep, fish / fish - fish, Swiss / Swiss - Swiss.
• The plural form of Latin and Greek borrowings is specific and represents linguistic exceptions, for example: genius / geniuses - genius / genii, formula / formulas - formula / formulae, radius / radii - radius / radii, base / bases - basis / bases, memorandum / memorandums – memorandum / memoranda.

Uncountable nouns only have singular or plural forms. It should be noted that when translating into Russian, analogies should not be drawn - the numbers may not coincide.

• Only singular have, for example, such nouns as ink - ink, information - information, money - money, fruits - fruit, cream - cream, success - success, furniture - furniture, advice - advice.
• Only plural nouns have news - news, scissors - scissors, jeans - jeans, goods - goods, shorts - shorts, content - contents, glasses - spectacles, clothes - clothes, vegetables - greens, garbage - sweepings, pants - trousers, pajamas - pajamas, advantage - odds.
• An indication of the quantity when using uncountable nouns is given using other speech means, for example: a bottle of milk - a bottle of milk, a piece of cheese - a piece of cheese, six kilograms of potatoes - six kilo potatoes, a lot of information - a lot of information.

Features of the formation of the plural form in complex nouns:

• Compound nouns made up of two stems and written together form the plural form according to the standard rules above for the second stem of a compound word, for example: (fabulous) treehouse / treehouses - treehouse / treehouses, classmate / classmates - schoolmate / schoolmates .
• For complex names written with a hyphen, the plural form forms the basis that carries the main semantic load, for example: father-in-law / father-in-law, father-in-law - father-in-law / fathers-in-law.
• In cases where the first basis of a compound noun is the words “man - man” or “woman - woman”, both bases take the plural form, for example: journalist / journalists - woman-journalist / women-journalists.

An important category of English names is the case, which characterizes the connection of this name with other members of the sentence. The English language has only two cases - common (common case) and possessive (possessive case).

The English common case is characterized by the fact that the nouns in it do not acquire any endings, and their meanings are of a general nature. The form of words in this case coincides with their dictionary form.

The English possessive case can convey belonging, possession, origin, measure, quality, and other relationships. Nouns in this case acquire the ending "-s" if they are used in the singular, and only an apostrophe if they are in the plural or if their stem ends in -s, for example: Jane's car - Jane's car, doctor's umbrella - doctor` s umbrella, his sisters' toys - his sisters` toys. Syntactically, the possessive case is a definition.

A feature of the possessive case is that it can contain only names denoting animals and persons. Belonging to inanimate objects and abstractions can be conveyed using a prepositional construction with “of”, for example: the facade of the house is front of a house, the middle of the street is middle of a street.

What are countable and uncountable nouns, any student can tell. The name speaks for itself: countable are those nouns that can be counted, and uncountable ones cannot be counted. However, this is not the only difference. Usually it is not difficult to determine whether a noun is countable or not, but in some cases the differences between Russian and English make themselves felt.

As practice shows, uncountable nouns cause more problems. Either they put the article in front of them, then they add the ending -S. Therefore, in this article we will focus our attention on those nouns that cannot be counted.

• Liquids: water, milk, tea, wine, etc.

Please note that the words tea, coffee, beer can be countable when, for example, you order something in a restaurant:

One coffee and two teas, please. - One cup of coffee and two cups of tea, please.

• Food (Types of food): bread, meat, cheese, butter, etc.

Many food names that represent a mass are measured in liters, kilograms ( kilos), pieces (piece), plates (bowl) and so on. Often mistakes are made with the word bread (bread), since in Russian it is considered the norm to say "one bread" when we mean a loaf of bread, but in English one should say a loaf of bread.

Some food items are a collection: pasta, spagetty, rice.

• Materials: sand, metal, concrete etc.

Materials are a mass or substance, but sometimes the word can become countable when referring to an object made from a given material: paper (paper) - a paper (newspaper). In addition, when talking about varieties of the same material or liquid, the word can be pluralized:

• : love, weather, time, sleep, importance, experience etc.

Many abstract nouns can also be countable, depending on their meaning in a particular sentence. For example, time is time, and time is times. Read more about this in.

• Names of gases (Gases): air, oxygen, etc..

• Sets (Mass Nouns): hair, furniture, clothes, traffic, luggage etc.

Uncountable also include those nouns that are not separate objects and denote a cluster of homogeneous objects, without clearly defined boundaries.

• Names of diseases (Illnesses): measles, influenza, mumps, etc.

But those nouns that denote frivolous health problems, such as a cold, a headache, a sore throat, a fever are countable and are preceded by an article. As for other diseases with the word ache ( toothache, backache, earache), then in British English they are always uncountable and are not used with the article A / AN, and in American English they can be countable when they denote a single attack of the disease:

I had a terrible toothache yesterday. - I had a very bad toothache yesterday. (Ame)

I had terrible toothache yesterday. - I had a very bad toothache yesterday. (BrE)

• Branches of Science (Fields of Study): mathematics, physics, economics, etc.

• Sports (Sports): gymnastics, football, tennis etc.

Now let's take a closer look at the differences between countable and uncountable nouns. Different sources highlight a different number of differences, describe them differently, but we will not complicate things and highlight three main ones.

1. Countables can be counted, and uncountables can be measured

With countable nouns, you can easily use cardinal numbers:

One tree - one tree

Five people - five people

One hundred dollars - one hundred dollars

When we are dealing with uncountable nouns, we need to use certain measures of measurement:

Two liters of milk - two liters of milk

Five of tons of coal - five tons of coal

Three bowls of soup - three bowls of soup

Different containers, measures, forms are used for measurement. There are a lot of them, certain substances are measured by the appropriate containers, so this topic deserves a separate article, which will soon appear on our website.

2. Use of determinants

Many + countables:

How many people were in the queue? - How many people were in the queue?

Much + uncountable:

How much milk do you need? - How much milk do you need?

The a lot of/ lots of qualifier can be used with both types:

I "ve got a lot of friends. - I have a lot of friends.

He "s got a lot of money. - He has a lot of money.

If there is a small amount of something, then the pair (a) few and (a) little is used.

(A) few + countable:

(A) little + uncountable:

She gave me a little salt. She gave me some salt.

Sometimes it is more expedient to use the word some in the meaning of "a little", it is combined with both countable and uncountable ones:

Some apples - some apples

Some apple juice - some apple juice

The words any and no are also used with both nouns:

Have you bought any vegetables? - Did you buy vegetables?

Have you bought any oil? - Did you buy oils?

We haven "t bought any sweets or any sugar. - We didn't buy sweets and sugar.

There are no vegetables in the fridge. - There are no vegetables in the refrigerator.

There is no sugar at all! - No sugar at all!

If your level is a little higher, then this table will surely come in handy, from which you can see which determiners are used with which nouns:

3. Plural and singular forms

And finally, the last difference. Countable nouns have singular and plural forms. Accessible and detailed about the plural is set out in the material on. Accordingly, if the noun is in the singular, we use the singular verbal form with it (is, was), and if in the plural, then the plural verbal form (are, were).

And here uncountable nouns can be roughly divided into two groups: those that "always is" and those that "always are". Of course, you will not find such terminology in textbooks, but this "classification" will help you remember.

Most uncountable nouns combine with the singular verb form (is, was, has):

And now, attention: those words that are constantly causing our mistakes. Remember that with these nouns in English we use singular form of the verb. Let's call them "always is":

news- news

money- money

advice- advice

furniture- furniture

knowledge- knowledge

traffic- road traffic

luggage- baggage

But what if you need to say: "a lot of advice" or "one piece of news"? By no means "many advices" and not "one new"! In this situation, use the word piece :

A piece of news - one piece of news

A piece of advice

Many pieces of advice

If the option with piece does not suit you, then select countable synonyms. For example, advice can be replaced by a countable recommendation or tip , the word news words news story or article .

And I'm not talking about money at all! Thought in Russian, word money always combined with a plural verb: money are. Don't let this happen! Learn two sentences:

This will help you avoid common mistakes.

In English, among the uncountable there are those that are consistent with the verbal forms of the plural (are, were). Here are some of them:

clothes- cloth

contents- content

customs- customs

funds- facilities

goods- product

groceries- foodstuffs

manners- manners, behavior

odds- odds

outskirts- outskirts

police- police

premises- real estate

regards- wishes

remains- remains

savings- savings

surroundings- surroundings

staff- staff

congratulations- congratulations

stairs- ladder

thanks- Gratitude

troops- troops

wages- wage

Remember that these words belong to the category "always are", even if you really want to say " is".

As you can see, countable and uncountable nouns are not such a simple topic, there are enough rules to learn them and exceptions to remember them.

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COUNTABLE AND UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

Countable and uncountable nouns ^ Noun Countable nouns name individual objects, people, concepts, etc. that can be counted. Uncountable nouns name materials, substances, abstract qualities, groups of objects and other objects that are understood as unified and without clear boundaries. The difference between countable and uncountable nouns in English is manifested in a number of grammatical properties: 1) Only countable nouns can be pluralized and combined with the indefinite article a/an and the quantifier pronouns many, few. Only uncountable nouns are combined with quantifier pronouns much, little. 2) Not all nouns belong only to the class of countable or uncountable. Many nouns can be used both as countable and uncountable, often with a change in meaning. In particular: a) a noun denoting a material can also denote a single object made from this material, or a portion of the material, in which case it is used as a countable. glass - glass (uncountable noun): The door was made of glass glass - glass (countable noun) Would you like a glass of water? - Would you like a glass of water? b) uncountable nouns can be used as countable when it comes to different types of material or substance. Sparkling wines shall be transparent and without foreign inclusions - Sparkling wines must be transparent and must not contain foreign impurities. 3) There is no complete correspondence between countable and uncountable nouns in English and Russian. Nouns that are uncountable in English, but are usually translated into Russian as countable nouns, include: advice - advice knowledge - knowledge lightning - lightning news - news permission - permission research - research travel - travel work - work To indicate a separate " part" of uncountable items, the word piece is usually used: a piece of information, a piece of advice. 4) With some uncountable nouns, in particular, with words denoting emotions and mental activity (knowledge, understanding, distrust, education, etc.), it is possible to use the indefinite article a / an, if the meaning of these words is somehow limited and specified (usually with an adjective): He has a good practical knowledge of British law - He has a good practical knowledge of British law.

English-Russian grammatical dictionary. English-Russian grammar dictionary. 2004