Unit 14

DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR

NOUNS

Nouns answer the questions "What is it?" and "Who is it?" They give names to things, people and qualities.

Examples: dog, bicycle, man, girl, beauty, truth, world.

NOUN GENDER

In general there is no distinction between masculine, feminine and neuter in English nouns. However, gender is sometimes shown by different forms or different words.

Examples:

Different words:

Masculine Feminine
man
father
uncle
boy
husband
woman
mother
aunt
girl
wife

Different forms:

Masculine Feminine

actor
prince
hero
waiter
widower

actress
princess
heroine
waitress
widow

Some nouns can be used for either a masculine or a feminine subject:

Examples:

cousin teenager teacher doctor
cook student parent friend
relation colleague partner leader

It is possible to make the distinction by adding the words 'male' or 'female'.

Example: a female student; a male cousin

For professions, we can add the word 'woman'

Example: a woman doctor; a woman journalist.

In some cases nouns describing things are given gender.

Examples:


THE PLURAL OF NOUNS

Most nouns form the plural by adding -s or -es.

Singular Plural
boat
hat
house
river
boats
hats
houses
rivers

A noun ending in -y preceded by a consonant makes the plural with -ies.

Singular Plural
a cry
a fly
a nappy
a poppy
a city
a lady
a baby
cries
flies
nappies
poppies
cities
ladies
babies

There are some irregular formations for noun plurals. Some of the most common ones are listed below.

Examples of irregular plurals:

Singular Plural

woman
man
child
tooth
foot
person
leaf
half
knife
wife
life
loaf
potato
cactus
focus
fungus
nucleus
syllabus
analysis
diagnosis
oasis
thesis
crisis
phenomenon
criterion
datum

women
men
children
teeth
feet
people
leaves
halves
knives
wives
lives
loaves
potatoes
cacti
foci
fungi
nuclei
syllabi/syllabuses
analyses
diagnoses
oases
theses
crises
phenomena
criteria
data

Some nouns have the same form in the singular and the plural.

Examples:

Singular Plural
sheep
fish
species
aircraft
sheep
fish
species
aircraft

Some nouns have a plural form but take a singular verb.

Examples:

Some nouns have a plural form and take a plural verb.

Examples:

others include:

savings, thanks, steps, stair, customs, congratulations, tropics, wages, spectacles, outskirts, goods, wits


COUNTABLE AND UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

Countable nouns are for things we can count:

Example: dog, horse, man, shop, idea.

They usually have a singular and plural form.

Example: two dogs, ten horses, a man, six men, the shops, a few ideas.

Uncountable nouns are for the things that we cannot count:

Example: tea, sugar, water, air, rice.

They are often the names for abstract ideas or qualities.

Example: knowledge, beauty, anger, fear, love.

They are used with a singular verb. They usually do not have a plural form. We cannot say sugars, angers, knowledges.

Examples of common uncountable nouns:

money, furniture, happiness, sadness, research, evidence, safety, beauty, knowledge.

We cannot use a/an with these nouns. To express a quantity of one of these nouns, use a word or expression like:
some, a lot of, a piece of, a bit of, a great deal of...

Examples:

Some nouns are countable in other languages but uncountable in English. Some of the most common of these are:

accommodation
advice
baggage
behaviour
bread
furniture
information
luggage
news
progress
traffic
travel
trouble
weather
work

BE CAREFUL with the noun 'hair' which is normally uncountable in English:

She has long blonde hair

It can also be countable when referring to individual hairs:

My father's getting a few grey hairs now


COMPOUND NOUNS

Formation

Words can be combined to form compound nouns. These are very common, and new combinations are invented almost daily. They normally have two parts. The second part identifies the object or person in question (man, friend, tank, table, room). The first part tells us what kind of object or person it is, or what its purpose is (police, boy, water, dining, bed):

What type / what purpose What or who
police man
boy friend
water tank
dining table
bed room

The two parts may be written in a number of ways:

  1. as one word.
    Example: policeman, boyfriend

  2. as two words joined with a hyphen.
    Example: dining-table

  3. as two separate words.
    Example: fish tank.

There are no clear rules about this - so write the common compounds that you know well as one word, and the others as two words.

The two parts may be: Examples:
noun + noun bedroom
water tank
motorcycle
printer cartridge
noun + verb rainfall
haircut
train-spotting
noun + adverb hanger-on
passer-by
verb + noun washing machine
driving licence
swimming pool
verb + adverb* lookout
take-off
drawback
adjective + noun greenhouse
software
redhead
adjective + verb dry-cleaning
public speaking
adverb + noun onlooker
bystander
adverb + verb* output
overthrow
upturn
input

Compound nouns often have a meaning that is different from the two separate words.

Stress is important in pronunciation, as it distinguishes between a compound noun (e.g. greenhouse) and an adjective with a noun (e.g. green house).

In compound nouns, the stress usually falls on the first syllable:

* Many common compound nouns are formed from phrasal verbs (verb + adverb or adverb + verb).

Examples: breakdown, outbreak, outcome, cutback, drive-in, drop-out, feedback, flyover, hold-up, hangover, outlay, outlet, inlet

 

STUDY GUIDE

Reference: EGU: 68-69, 78-79; PEG: 10-16.

  1. Read the text below. Fill in the gaps and choose with a partitive from the list.

    bar, jar, pinch, sheet, sip, bar, cube, wisp, pot, tube, slice, bottle, box

    1. I'd like a ... of ice.
    2. Have you got a ... of chocolate?
    3. Can I have a ... of bread, please?
    4. We need a ... of paper.
    5. Buy me a ... of soap, please.
    6. Buy me a ... of milk, please.
    7. We need a ... of jam.
    8. Have you got a ... of matches.
    9. I've made a ... of tea.
    10. Buy a ... of toothpaste.
    11. Add a ... of salt.
    12. I've drunk a ... of tea.
    13. I can see a ... of smoke.

  2. Type in the missing words in the text below, referring to the list as little as possible. The first one has been done as an example.

    actress, aunt, bachelor, bridegroom, cows, daughter, female, goddess, hens, heroine, heiress, lionesses, mares, nephew, nieces, nuns, prince, queens, ram, saleswoman, sister, sow, spinster, uncle, waitress, widower.

    1. John's brother is a bank clerk and his sister is a nurse.
    2. My aunt is very nice and my ... has a wonderful sense of humour.
    3. My ... is a little boy of four; my niece is a little girl of two.
    4. My father's brother and sister have never married. He's still a ... and she's a ... .
    5. These days, few men become monks and few women become ... .
    6. There is only one bull in the field, but there are dozens of ... .
    7. The cock crows at dawn and wakes up all the ... .
    8. The stallion is in a separate stable from the ... .
    9. We call the boar Henry and we call the ... Jemima.
    10. The ewes look quiet enough, but I don't like the look of that ... .
    11. Tony is an actor and his wife is an ... .
    12. John and Jane work in a restaurant; he is a waiter and she is a ... .
    13. In fairy tales the handsome ... usually marries the beautiful princess.
    14. We went to a wildlife park and saw a lot of lions and ... .
    15. In mythology, Mars is the god of war; Diana is the ... of hunting.
    16. Katerina is the ... to her father's fortune.
    17. Why does everyone expect the hero of the story to marry the ... .
    18. A widow can often manage much better on her own than a ... .
    19. A ... won the award for most sales this month; a salesman came second.
    20. When you look at fish, it's often difficult to distinguish between male and ... .
    21. Very few people know the names of the kings and ... of England.
    22. I took a photo of the bride and ... at the wedding.
    23. The Smiths have a son called Robert and a ... called Jill.
    24. My uncle and ... are over here from Canada.
    25. I enjoy being an uncle. I have two ... and three nephews.

  3. Use the nouns derived from verbs, adjectives or other nouns in the following sentences. Use the endings given in the list below. The first one has been done as an example.

    -age, -hood, -ation, -ion, -ful, -ence, -ency, -ness, -al, -(er)y, -ment, -ety, -ism, -ity, -ing

    1. I decided this. It was my decision .
    2. Don't be so anxious. Control your ... .
    3. Ann's a socialist. She believes in ... .
    4. We all want to be happy. We all seek ... .
    5. We all agree. We're all in ... .
    6. Who discovered this? Who made this ... ?
    7. We'll all arrive. We'll be met on ... .
    8. I was a child then. That was in my ... .
    9. She is absent. Can you explain her ...
    10. I'll post this. What's the ... ?
    11. Try again. Have another ... .
    12. Be more efficient. Improve your ... .
    13. Don't be so curious. Control your ... .
    14. Address this envelope. I'll give you the ... .
    15. I refused their offer. My ... is final.
    16. I warned you. I gave you enough ... .
    17. Put it in your mouth. Take one ... .
    18. Can you explain it? Is there an ... ?
    19. They tried him. I was at the ... .
    20. Don't argue. I don't want an ... .

  4. Write missing word from the following list in the text below. The first one has been done as an example.

    is, are, has, have

    1. The acoustics in this room ... very good.
    2. This crossroads ... dangerous.
    3. There ... four crossroads in our village.
    4. Acoustics ... a subject I know little about.
    5. Our company headquarters ... in London.
    6. There ... many series of books on birds.
    7. ... there any kennels in this area?
    8. The statistics in this report ... inaccurate.
    9. ... there any statistics for road accidents?
    10. Many species of moth ... disappeared.
    11. This species ... green and white spots.
    12. Our works ... a good canteen.
    13. My maths ... got worse and worse!
    14. There ... crossroads every mile

 

READING COMPREHENSION

Read the following poem and answer the questions.

THREE KINDS OF PLEASURES

I

Sometimes, riding in a car, in Wisconsin
Or Illinois, you notice those dark telephone poles
One day one lift themselves out of the fence line
And slowly leap on the gray sky--
5 And past "them", the snowy fields.

II

The darkness drifts down like snow on the picked cornfields
In Wisconsin, and on these black trees
Scattered, "one by one",
Through the winter fields--
10 We see stiff weeds and brownish stubble,
And white snow left now only in the wheeltracks of the
combine

III

It is a pleasure, also, to be driving
Toward Chicago, near dark,
15 And see the lights in the barns.
The bare trees more dignified than ever,
Like a fierce man on his deathbed,
And the ditches along the road half full of a private snow.

  1. In line 5, to what does the word "them" refer to?
    1. the grey sky
    2. leaping
    3. telephone poles
    4. the fence line

  2. In Section II, what time of day is it?
    1. night
    2. evening
    3. darkness
    4. morning

  3. In line 8, to what does "one by one" refer?
    1. darkness
    2. snow
    3. cornfields
    4. black trees

  4. In section II, where is the snow?
    1. in the wheeltracks of combine
    2. in the cornfield
    3. in Wisconsin
    4. on the road

  5. In section III, what time of year is it?
    1. late spring
    2. early spring
    3. fall
    4. winter

- key to Unit 14 -

 

Literature

Charles Dickens

Dickens, Charles John Huffam (1812-1870), English novelist and one of the most popular writers in the history of literature. In his enormous body of works, Dickens combined masterly storytelling, humor, pathos, and irony with sharp social criticism and acute observation of people and places, both real and imagined.

Dickens was born February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth and spent most of his childhood in London and Kent, both of which appear frequently in his novels. He started school at the age of nine, but his education was interrupted when his father, an amiable but careless minor civil servant, was imprisoned for debt in 1824. The boy was then forced to support himself by working in a shoe-polish factory. A resulting sense of humiliation and abandonment haunted him for life, and he later described this experience, only slightly altered, in his novel David Copperfield (1849-1850). From 1824 to 1826, Dickens again attended school. For the most part, however, he was self-educated. Among his favorite books were those by such great 18th-century novelists as Henry Fielding and Tobias Smollett, and their influence can be discerned in Dickens's own novels. In 1827 Dickens took a job as a legal clerk. After learning shorthand, he began working as a reporter in the courts and Parliament, perhaps developing the power of precise description that was to make his creative writing so remarkable.

In December 1833 Dickens published the first of a series of original descriptive sketches of daily life in London, using the pseudonym Boz. A London publisher commissioned a volume of similar sketches to accompany illustrations by the celebrated artist George Cruikshank. The success of this work, Sketches by Boz (1836), permitted Dickens to marry Catherine Hogarth in 1836 and led to the proposal of a similar publishing venture in collaboration with the popular artist Robert Seymour. When Seymour committed suicide, another artist, H. K. Browne, called Phiz, who subsequently drew the pictures for most of Dickens's later works, took his place. Dickens transformed this particular project from a set of loosely connected vignettes into a comic narrative, The Pickwick Papers (1837). The success of this first novel made Dickens famous. At the same time it influenced the publishing industry in Great Britain, being issued in a rather unusual form, that of inexpensive monthly installments; this method of publication quickly became popular among Dickens's contemporaries.

Dickens subsequently maintained his fame with a constant stream of novels. A man of enormous energy and wide talents, he also engaged in many other activities. He edited the weekly periodicals Household Words (1850-1859) and All the Year Round (1859-1870), composed the travel books American Notes (1842) and Pictures from Italy (1846), administered charitable organizations, and pressed for many social reforms. In 1842 he lectured in the United States in favor of an international copyright agreement and in opposition to slavery. In 1843 he published A Christmas Carol, an ever-popular children's story. Dickens's extraliterary activities also included managing a theatrical company that played before Queen Victoria in 1851 and giving public readings of his own works in England and America. All these successes, however, were shadowed by domestic unhappiness. Incompatibility and Dickens's relations with a young actress, Ellen Ternan, led to his separation from his wife in 1858, after the marriage had produced ten children. He suffered a fatal stroke on June 9, 1870, and was buried in Westminster Abbey five days later.

As Dickens matured artistically, his novels developed from comic tales based on the adventures of a central character, like The Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), to works of great social relevance, psychological insight, and narrative and symbolic complexity. Among his fine works are Bleak House (1852-1853), Little Dorritt (1857), Great Expectations (1860-1861), and Our Mutual Friend (1865). Readers of the 19th and early 20th century usually prized Dickens's earlier novels for their humor and pathos. While recognizing the virtues of these books, critics today tend to rank more highly the later works because of their formal coherence and acute perception of the human condition. In addition to those mentioned, Dickens's major writings include Oliver Twist (1838), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), Barnaby Rudge (1841), Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844), Dombey and Son (1846-1848), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished, 1870).

- Contest 14 -

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