It is customary to classify many nouns denoting persons, objects and phenomena in accordance with the object of naming - this is how the division into a common noun and a proper noun appeared.
Common nouns VS onyms
Common nouns (otherwise known as appellatives) name objects that have a certain common set of characteristics and belong to one or another class of objects or phenomena. For example: boy, peach, sturgeon, meeting, mourning, pluralism, rebellion.
Proper names, or onyms, name single objects or individuals, for example: writer Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, city Essentuki, painting " Girl with peaches", television center " Ostankino».
Proper names and common nouns, examples of which we gave above, are traditionally opposed to each other, since they have different meanings and do not coincide in the scope of their functioning.
Typology of common nouns
A common noun in the Russian language forms special lexical and grammatical categories, the words in which are grouped depending on the type of object of naming:
1. Specific names (they are also called “specific-subject”) serve as names for persons, living beings, and objects. These words vary in number and are combined with cardinal numerals: teacher - teachers - first teacher; chick - chicks; cube - cubes.
2. Abstract, or abstract, nouns name a state, attribute, action, result: success, hope, creativity, merit.
3. Real, or material, nouns (they are also called “concretely material”) - words that are specific in semantics and name specific substances. These words most often do not have a correlative plural form. There are the following groups of real nouns: nominations of food products ( butter, sugar, tea), names of medications ( iodine, streptocide), names of chemical substances ( fluorine, beryllium), minerals and metals ( potassium, magnesium, iron), other substances ( crushed stone, snow). Such common nouns, examples of which are given above, can be used in the plural form. This is appropriate when we are talking about types and varieties of any substance: wines, cheeses; about the space that is filled with this substance: Sands of the Sahara, neutral waters.
4.Collective nouns name a certain set of homogeneous objects, a unity of persons or other living beings: foliage, students, nobility.
"Shifts" in the meaning of common nouns
Sometimes a common noun contains in its meaning an indication not only of a certain class of objects, but also of some very specific object within its class. This happens if:
- The individual characteristics of the object as such are ignored: for example, there is a folk sign “ If you kill a spider, forty sins will be forgiven", and in this context we do not mean any specific spider, but absolutely any one.
- In the situation described, we mean one specific object of a given class: for example, “ Come, let's sit on the bench“- the interlocutors know where exactly the meeting place is.
- Individual characteristics of an object can be described by explanatory definitions: for example: “ I can't forget the wonderful day we met“- the speaker singles out a specific day among a series of other days.
Transition of nouns from onyms to appellatives
Individual proper names are sometimes used to generally designate a number of homogeneous objects, then they turn into common nouns. Examples: Derzhimorda, Don Juan; Napoleon cake; Colt, Mauser, revolver; ohm, ampere
Proper names that have become appellatives are called eponyms. In modern speech they are usually used to make humorous or derogatory remarks about someone: Aesculapius(doctor), pele(football player) Schumacher(racer, lover of fast driving).
An animate common noun can also become an eponym if this is the name of any product or establishment: candy " Bear in the north", oil " Kuban Burenka", restaurant " Senator».
Nomenclature units and eponymous trademarks
The class of eponyms also includes any proper name of an object or phenomenon, which begins to be used as a common noun for the entire class of similar objects. Examples of eponyms include words such as " diaper, tampax, photocopier, in modern speech used as a common noun.
The transition of the trademark's own name to the category of eponyms eliminates the value and uniqueness in the perception of the manufacturer's brand. Yes, an American corporation Xerox, which for the first time in 1947 introduced the world to a machine for copying documents, “erased” the common noun from the English language xerox, replacing it with photocopier And photocopy. In Russian the words " xerox, photocopying, photocopies" and even " photocopy" turned out to be more tenacious, since there is no more suitable word; " photocopy" and its derivatives are not very good options.
A similar situation is with the product of the American transnational company Procter & Gamble - diapers Pampers. Any diapers from another company with similar moisture-absorbing qualities are called diapers.
Spelling proper and common nouns
The common noun rule that regulates the spelling norm in the Russian language recommends writing with a lowercase letter: baby, grasshopper, dream, prosperity, secularization.
Onims also have their own spelling system, however, it is simple:
Typically these nouns are capitalized: Tatyana Larina, Paris, Academician Koroleva street, dog Sharik.
When used with a generic word, the onym forms its own name, denoting the name of a brand, event, establishment, enterprise, etc.; This naming is capitalized and enclosed in quotation marks: VDNH metro station, musical Chicago, novel Eugene Onegin, Russian Booker Prize.
The use of terminology in defining parts of speech and their varieties is common among philologists. For a common person, all sorts of sophisticated names often seem like something unclear and complicated. Many schoolchildren are unable to understand abstract terms denoting types of parts of speech, and they turn to their parents for help. Adults have to look again at textbooks or search for information on the Internet.
Today we will try to talk in simple and understandable Russian about what proper and common nouns are, how they differ, how to find them and use them correctly in speech and text.
What part of speech?
Before determining the part of speech in Russian, you need to correctly ask a question about the word and determine what it means. If the word you chose matches the questions “who?” or “what?”, but it denotes an object, then it is a noun. This simple truth is easily learned even by schoolchildren, and many adults remember it. But the question of whether the noun in front of you is a proper or a common noun can already confuse a person. Let's try to figure out what these linguistic definitions mean.
The answer is in meaning
All words belonging to the part of speech we are considering are divided into several types and categories according to different criteria. One of the classifications is the division into proper and common nouns. It is not so difficult to distinguish them, you just need to understand the meaning of the word. If an individual specific person or some single object is called, then it is proper, and if the meaning of the word indicates the general name of many similar objects, persons or phenomena, then this is a common noun.
Let's explain this with examples. The word "Alexandra" is proper because it denotes the name of an individual person. The words “girl, girl, woman” are common nouns because they represent a general name for all female persons. The difference becomes clear, and it lies in the meaning.
Names and nicknames
It is customary to classify several groups of words as proper nouns.
The first consists of the person’s first name, patronymic and last name, as well as his nickname or pseudonym. This also includes cat, dog and other animal names. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov, Murka, Pushinka, Sharik, Druzhok - these names distinguish one specific creature from others of their own kind. If we select a common noun for the same objects, we can say: poet, cat, dog.
Names on the map
The second group of words consists of names of various geographical objects. Let's give examples: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Washington, Neva, Volga, Rhine, Russia, France, Norway, Europe, Africa, Australia. For comparison, we also give a common noun corresponding to the given names: city, river, country, continent.
Space objects
The third group includes various astronomical names. These are, for example, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mercury, Solar System, Milky Way. Each of the given names is a proper name, and you can choose a common noun generalized in meaning to it. Examples of named objects correspond to the words planet, galaxy.
Names and brands
Another group of words that are proper are various names of something - shops, cafes, literary works, paintings, magazines, newspapers, and so on. In the phrase “Magnit store,” the first is a common noun, and the second is a proper noun. Let's give more similar examples: the cafe "Chocolate Girl", the novel "War and Peace", the painting "Water", the magazine "Murzilka", the newspaper "Arguments and Facts", the sailing ship "Sedov", the plant "Babaevsky", the gas stove "Hephaestus", “Consultant Plus” system, “Chardonnay” wine, “Napoleon” cake, “United Russia” party, “Nika” award, “Alenka” chocolate, “Ruslan” airplane.
Spelling features
Since proper names indicate a specific individual object, distinguishing it from all other similar ones, they also stand out in writing - they are written with a capital letter. Children learn this at the very beginning of their schooling: surnames, first names, patronymics, designations on the map, animal names, and other names of something are written with a capital letter. Examples: Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Vanka, Ivan Kalita, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, Novgorod, Angara, Cyprus, Turkey, Australia, Zhuchka, Pushok, Murzik.
There is another feature of writing proper nouns, it concerns the names of factories, firms, enterprises, ships, periodicals (newspapers and magazines), works of art and literature, feature films, documentaries and other films, performances, cars, drinks, cigarettes and other similar things. words Such names are not only written with a capital letter, but also enclosed in quotation marks. In philological science they are called by their proper names. Examples: Niva car, Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, Mayak radio, poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, Chanel perfume, Za Rulem magazine, Troika cigarettes, Fanta drink, Prosveshchenie publishing house , Abba group, Kinotavr festival.
A proper noun begins with a capital letter, and a common noun begins with a lowercase letter. This simple rule often helps a person in determining spelling standards. This rule is easy to remember, but sometimes there are difficulties. As you know, the Russian language is rich in its exceptions to every rule. Such complex cases are not included in the school curriculum, and therefore, in the tasks of the Russian language textbook, even younger schoolchildren can easily determine by the first letter in a word whether the noun before them is a proper or a common noun.
Conversion of a proper name into a common noun and vice versa
As noted above, a common noun is a generalized name for something. But the Russian language is a living, changing system, and sometimes various transformations and changes occur in it: sometimes common nouns become proper nouns. For example: earth is land, Earth is a planet in the solar system. Universal human values, designated by the common nouns love, faith and hope, have long become women's names - Faith, Hope, Love. In the same way, some animal nicknames and other names arise: Ball, Snowball, etc.
The reverse process also occurs in the Russian language, when proper nouns become common nouns. Thus, the unit of electrical voltage - the volt - was named after the Italian physicist Volta. The name of the master of musical instruments, Sax, became the common noun “saxophone”. The Dutch city of Bruges gave its name to the word "trousers". The names of the great gunsmiths - Mauser, Colt, Nagan - became the names of pistols. And there are many such examples in the language.
§1. General characteristics of a noun
A noun is an independent significant part of speech.
1. Grammatical meaning- "item".
Nouns include words that answer questions:
Who? , What?
2. Morphological characteristics:
- constants - common/proper nouns, animate/inanimate, gender, type of declension;
- changeable - number, case.
3. Syntactic role in a sentence any, especially frequently: subject and object.
Guys love vacations.
As an address and introductory words, the noun is not a member of the sentence:
- Sergey!- Mom calls me from the yard.
(Sergey- appeal)
Unfortunately, it's time to go do homework.
(Unfortunately- introductory word)
§2. Morphological features of nouns
Nouns have a set of morphological features. Some of them are permanent (or unchangeable). Others, on the contrary, are impermanent (or changeable). Unchangeable features relate to the entire word as a whole, and changeable features refer to the forms of the word. So noun Natalia- animate, own, f.r., 1 text. No matter what form it takes, these signs will remain. Noun Natalia may be in the form of units. and many more numbers, in different cases. Number and case are inconsistent features of nouns. In the illustration, dotted lines lead to such unstable or variable morphological characters. It is necessary to learn to distinguish which signs are constant and which are not constant.
§3. Common nouns - proper nouns
This is the division of nouns according to their meaning. Common nouns denote homogeneous objects, i.e. any object from their series, and proper nouns name a separate specific object.
Compare nouns:
- child, country, river, lake, fairy tale, turnip - common nouns
- Alexey, Russia, Volga, Baikal, “Turnip” - 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, names of animals, geographical names, names of works of literature and art, etc.: Alexander, Sashka, Sashenka, Zhuchka, Ob, Ural, “Teenager”, “Kolobok” etc.
§4. Animation - inanimateness
Animate nouns name “living” objects, while inanimate nouns name non-living objects.
- Animated: mother, father, child, dog, ant, Kolobok (fairy tale hero acting as a living person)
- Inanimate: orange, ocean, war, lilac, program, toy, delight, laughter
For morphology it is important that
- plural in animate nouns
Near the school I saw familiar girls and boys (vin. fall. = born. fall.), and for inanimate nouns wine form pad. matches the form. pad.: I love books and films (vin. pad. = im. pad.) - singular in animate nouns of the masculine gender wine form pad. coincides with the form of the genus. pad.:
The fox saw Kolobok (vin. fall. = born. fall.), and for inanimate nouns the masculine gender wine form pad. matches the form. pad.: I baked a bun (vin. pad. = named pad.)
The remaining nouns have the forms im., vin. and family cases differ.
Means, sign of animate-inanimate can be determined not only based on the meaning, but also on the set of word endings.
§5. Genus
Gender of nouns- This is a constant morphological feature. Nouns do not change according to gender.
There are three genders in Russian: male, female And average. The sets of endings for nouns of different genders differ.
In animate nouns, classification as masculine or feminine is motivated by gender, since words denote male or female persons: father - mother, brother - sister, husband - wife, man - woman, boy - girl etc. The grammatical sign of gender is correlated with gender.
For inanimate nouns, the belonging of a word to one of the three genders is not motivated. Words ocean, sea, river, lake, pond- of different kinds, and the gender is not determined by the meaning of the words.
The morphological indicator of the genus is the endings.
If the word ends:
a, y or a, ohm, e in the singular and s, ov, am, s or ow, ami, ah plural , then it is a masculine noun
a, s, e, y, oh, e singular and s, am or s, ami, ah in the plural, it is a feminine noun
oh, a, y, oh, ohm, e in the singular and a, am, a, ami, 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 because they can refer to both male and female persons. These are the words: smart girl glutton, sleepyhead, greedy, crybaby, ignorant, ignorant, mean, bully, slob, mean, bungler, scoundrel, 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's so smart! AND: He's so smart! The meaning of the gender of an animate person can be determined by the form of the pronoun (as in our example) or adjective or 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 them 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 the masculine and feminine gender: The doctor has arrived. AND: The doctor has arrived.
How to determine the gender of unchangeable words?
There are unchangeable 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 not difficult if you understand what the word means. Let's look at examples:
Monsieur - Madame- for words denoting an animate person, gender corresponds to gender.
Kangaroo, chimpanzee- words naming animals, masculine.
Tbilisi, Sukhumi- words - names of cities - masculine.
Congo, Zimbabwe- words - names of states - neuter.
Mississippi, Yangtze- words - names of rivers - feminine.
Coat, muffler- words denoting inanimate objects are more common neuter.
Are there any exceptions? Eat. Therefore, it is recommended to be careful about unchangeable words and remember how they are used. Gender is expressed not by the ending (indeclinable words do not have 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 deep.
Short adjectives in the form of zh.r. indicate that the word Mississippi w.r.
§6. Declension
Declension is a type of word change. Nouns change according to number and case. Number and case are variable morphological features. Depending on what forms a word has in different numbers and cases, based on 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, unchangeable morphological feature of nouns.
The 1st declension includes feminine and masculine words with endings A, I in its initial form.
Examples: mom, dad, grandpa, water, earth, Anna, Anya, lecture - ending [a].
The 2nd declension includes masculine words with zero endings and neuter words with endings O, e
in its initial form.
Examples: father, brother, house, Alexander, sea, lake, building - ending [e] , genius, Alexey.
The 3rd declension includes feminine words ending in zero in its initial form.
Examples: mother, mouse, night, news, rye, lie.
Initial form- this is the form of the word in which it is usually recorded in dictionaries. For nouns, this is the nominative singular form.
Pay attention to the words traditionally called nouns on yeah, yeah, th : lecture, building, genius.
How to correctly mark the endings in such 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 - does a vowel represent two sounds? Lecture- [iya’a], building- [iy’e], and the sound [y’] is the last consonant of the base. So, in words like lecture ending [a], in words like building- [e], and in words like genius- zero ending.
Therefore, feminine nouns: lecture, station, demonstration belong to the 1st declension, and masculine: genius and average: building- to the 2nd.
One more group of words requires comment. These are the so-called neuter nouns me , words way and child. These are indeclinable nouns.
Indeclinable nouns- these are words that have endings characteristic of forms of different declensions.
There are few such words. They are all very ancient. Some of them are common in today's speech.
List of nouns on My name: stirrup, tribe, seed, burden, udder, crown, time, name, flame, banner.
For their spelling, see All spelling. Spelling nouns
§7. Number
Number- this is a morphological feature, changeable for some nouns and unchangeable, constant for others.
The overwhelming number of Russian nouns vary in number. For example: house - houses, girl - girls, elephant - elephants, night - nights. Nouns that vary 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: person - people, child - children, kitten - kittens.
The minority of Russian nouns do not change in number, but have 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, goodness
- some of our own, namely: geographical names: Russia, Suzdal, St. Petersburg
Nouns that have a plural form:
- collective: shoots
- real: cream, cabbage soup
- abstract (or abstract): chores, elections, twilight
- some proper, namely geographical names: Carpathians, Himalayas
- some specific (object) watches, sleds, as well as a group of nouns denoting objects that consist of two parts: skis, skates, glasses, gates
Remember:
Most objects denoted by nouns that have only singular or plural forms cannot be counted.
For such nouns, number is an unchangeable morphological feature.
§8. Case
Case- this is a non-constant, changeable morphological feature of nouns. There are six cases in Russian:
- Nominative
- Genitive
- Dative
- Accusative
- Instrumental
- Prepositional
You need to have a firm grasp of case questions, which are used to determine which case form a noun is in. Since, as you know, nouns can be 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. - by whom?, what?
- P.p. - (about) whom?, (about) what?
You see that for animate nouns the questions vin.p are the same. and family etc., and for the inanimate - them. p. and wine p.
To avoid mistakes 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?) park(vin. p.), alley(vin. p.), girl(vin. p.), person(vin. p.).
Do all nouns change by case?
No, not all. Nouns, which are called unchangeable, 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). It's interesting with a cockatoo (6).
Word cockatoo occurred in this context 6 times:
- (1) who?, what? - cockatoo- I.p.
- (2) approaching (to) whom?, what? - (to) cockatoo- D.p.
- (3) looking (at) who?, what? - (on) a cockatoo- V.p.
- (4) know (about) whom?, what? - ( o) cockatoo- P.p.
- (5) no who?, what? - cockatoo- R.p.
- (6) interesting (with) who?, what? - (from cockatoo)- etc.
In different cases, the form of unchangeable nouns is the same. But the case is determined easily. Case questions help with this, as well as other parts of the sentence. If such a noun has a definition expressed by an adjective, pronoun, numeral or participle, i.e. a word that changes according to cases, then it will be in the form of the same case as the unchangeable noun itself.
Example: How long can you talk about this cockatoo?- (about) whom?. how? - P.p.
§9. Syntactic role of nouns in a sentence
Mother sits by the window. She leafs through a magazine, looking at photographs of people and nature. My mother is a geography teacher. “Mom,” I call her.
Mother - subject
At the window - circumstance
Magazine- addition
Photos- addition
People- definition
Nature- definition
Mother- subject
Teacher- predicate
Geographies- definition
Mother- addresses, like introductory words, prepositions, conjunctions, particles are not members of the sentence.
Test of strength
Check your understanding of this chapter.
Final test
What nouns denote individual specific objects, rather than groups of homogeneous objects?
- Proper names
- Common nouns
Which group of nouns has the most variety in meaning?
- Proper names
- Common nouns
Is animate-inanimateness expressed grammatically: by a set of endings?
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
What are the names of nouns that have endings characteristic of different declensions?
- Unbowed
- Divergent
What is the sign of number in nouns? good, evil, envy?
- Permanent (unchangeable)
- Impermanent (changeable)
-
Quite often, students ask: “What is a common noun and a proper name?” Despite the simplicity of the question, not everyone knows the definition of these terms and the rules for writing such words. Let's figure it out. After all, in fact, everything is extremely simple and clear.
Common noun
The most significant layer of nouns consists of They denote the names of a class of objects or phenomena that have a number of characteristics by which they can be attributed to the specified class. For example, common nouns are: cat, table, corner, river, girl. They do not name a specific object or person or animal, but designate a whole class. Using these words, we mean any cat or dog, any table. Such nouns are written with a small letter.
In linguistics, common nouns are also called appellatives.
Proper name
Unlike common nouns, they constitute an insignificant layer of nouns. These words or phrases denote a specific and specific object that exists in a single copy. Proper names include names of people, names of animals, names of cities, rivers, streets, and countries. For example: Volga, Olga, Russia, Danube. They are always written with a capital letter and indicate a specific person or single object.
The science of onomastics deals with the study of proper names.
Onomastics
So, we have figured out what a common noun and a proper name are. Now let's talk about onomastics - the science that deals with the study of proper names. At the same time, not only names are considered, but also the history of their origin, how they changed over time.
Onomastologists identify several directions in this science. Thus, anthroponymy studies the names of people, and ethnonymy studies the names of peoples. Cosmonymics and astronomy study the names of stars and planets. Zoonymics studies animal names. Theonymics deals with the names of gods.
This is one of the most promising areas in linguistics. Research on onomastics is still being conducted, articles are being published, and conferences are being held.
Transition of common nouns into proper nouns and vice versa
A common noun and a proper noun can move from one group to another. Quite often it happens that a common noun becomes a proper one.
For example, if a person is called by a name that was previously part of the class of common nouns, it becomes a proper name. A striking example of such a transformation is the names Vera, Lyubov, Nadezhda. They used to be household names.
Surnames formed from common nouns also become anthroponyms. Thus, we can highlight the surnames Cat, Cabbage and many others.
As for proper names, they quite often move into another category. This often concerns people's last names. Many inventions bear the names of their authors; sometimes the names of scientists are assigned to the quantities or phenomena they discovered. So, we know the units of measurement ampere and newton.
The names of the heroes of the works can become household names. Thus, the names Don Quixote, Oblomov, Uncle Styopa came to designate certain traits of appearance or character characteristic of people. The names of historical figures and celebrities can also be used as common nouns, for example, Schumacher and Napoleon.
In such cases, it is necessary to clarify what exactly the addresser means in order to avoid mistakes when writing the word. But often it is possible from the context. We think you understand what a common and proper name is. The examples we have given show this quite clearly.
Rules for writing proper names
As you know, all parts of speech are subject to spelling rules. Nouns - common and proper - were also no exception. Remember a few simple rules that will help you avoid making annoying mistakes in the future.
- Proper names are always written with a capital letter, for example: Ivan, Gogol, Catherine the Great.
- People's nicknames are also written with a capital letter, but without the use of quotation marks.
- Proper names used in the meaning of common nouns are written with a small letter: Don Quixote, Don Juan.
- If next to a proper name there are function words or generic names (cape, city), then they are written with a small letter: Volga River, Lake Baikal, Gorky Street.
- If a proper name is the name of a newspaper, cafe, book, then it is placed in quotation marks. In this case, the first word is written with a capital letter, the rest, if they do not refer to proper names, are written with a small letter: “The Master and Margarita”, “Russian Truth”.
- Common nouns are written with a small letter.
As you can see, the rules are quite simple. Many of them have been known to us since childhood.
Let's sum it up
All nouns are divided into two large classes - proper nouns and common nouns. There are much fewer of the former than the latter. Words can move from one class to another, acquiring a new meaning. Proper names are always written with a capital letter. Common nouns - with a small one.
) a whole group of objects that have common characteristics, and naming these objects according to their belonging to a given category: article, house, computer etc.
A wide group of common nouns is represented by terms of a scientific and technical nature, including terms of physical geography, toponymy, linguistics, art, etc. If the orthographic sign of all proper names is to write them with a capital letter, then common nouns are written with a lowercase letter.
Transition of onym to appellative without affixation in linguistics it is called appeal (deonymization) . For example:
- (English Charles Boycott → English to boycott);
- Labrador Peninsula → labradorite (stone);
- Newfoundland → Newfoundland (dog breed).
The transition of a common noun to a proper one may be accompanied by the loss of its previous meaning, for example:
- right hand (from other Russian. desn "right") → river "Desna". The Desna is a left tributary of the Dnieper.
- Velikaya → Velikaya River (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:
- The individual characteristics of the object do not matter. For example: " If you don't tease a dog, it won't bite." - the word "dog" refers to any dog, not any specific one.
- In the situation described, there is only one item of this category. For example: " Meet me on the corner at noon“- the interlocutors know which corner will serve as the meeting place.
- Individual characteristics 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 nouns is not unshakable: common nouns can turn into proper nouns in the form of names and nicknames ( onymization), and proper names - into common nouns ( deonymization).
Onimization(transition appellative V them):
- Kalita (bag) → Ivan Kalita;
Deonymization. The following types of such transitions are noted:
- person's name → person; Pechora (river) → Pechora (city)
- person's name → thing: Kravchuk → kravchuchka, Colt → colt;
- name of place → thing: Cashmere → cashmere (fabric);
- person's name → action: Boycott → boycott;
- name of place → action: Earth → land;
- person's name → unit of measurement: Ampere → ampere, Henry → henry, Newton → newton;
Proper names that have become common nouns are called eponyms, sometimes they are used in a humorous sense (for example, “Aesculapius” - doctor, “Schumacher” - a lover of fast driving, etc.).
A striking example of transformation before our eyes own name V eponym is the word kravchuchka - a widespread name for a handcart in Ukraine, named after the 1st president Leonid Kravchuk, during whose reign shuttlecraft became widespread, and the word kravchuchka in everyday life it has practically replaced other names for handcarts.
