Collective Nouns and Nouns of Multitude

THE NOUN

We shall class as nouns words which comply with the following set of criteria:

(a) They constitute an open class - indeed, the most open of all, since any word (or other linguistic form) becomes (conforms to the criteria for) a noun if it is mentioned rather than used (as in "There are too many ifs and buts about it", "a certain^ ne sais quoi"). It is a corollary that they have full lexical mean­ing, and, even, if they are monosyllables, inherent stress.

(b) Functionally, they can be the (or the head of the) subject, or, without morphological change [...] the complement, of a sen­tence. Examples are "shopkeeper", "boy", and "change" in "The shopkeeper gave the boy his change".

(c) Positionally, they can follow directly in minimal constructions (i.e., be head-word to) a closed system of words we shall call determiners. They can also follow directly in the same clause, and without change of form, the closed system of items welshall call prepositions. Examples of these positions are those of "house", "top" and "hill" in "The house stood on the top of the hill". They can stand in adjunct relationship directly before other nouns (as in "gold mine", "retiring age"), and directly after nouns in the genitive case (as in "a mare's nest").

(d) Morphologically, they are variables in respect of a two-term system of number and a two-term system of case.

(e) Finally, nouns are sub-divided in terms of syntactical pattern­ing into several genders, i.e., subclasses capable of patterning with certain pronouns and not with others. Gender as a lin­guistic term generally relates to limited capacities for pattern­ing with other linguistic forms, though the particular kind of limitation found in English is far from being the only one.

It is from all these features taken together that a family likeness arises, which is the source of the class-meaning of nouns. In the past, nouns have often been defined from the kind of class-meaning they have - it was said, f. ex., that a noun is the name of anything that exists or can be conceived. There is a good deal of truth in this -enough to have kept the idea alive for many centuries - but it is not wholly true. In any case it seems nowadays like putting the cart be­fore the horse: it is the common formal feature that fulfils a common function and so gives rise to a common meaning in nouns as a whole. It happens in this case that the resultant class-meaning is relatively specific and easy to verbalize. But it is not the evidence that a particular word is or is not a noun.

The noun in Modern English has only two grammatical categories, number and case. The existence of case appears to be doubtful and has to be carefully analysed.

The Modern English noun certainly has not got the category of grammatical gender, which is to be found, for example, in Russian, French, German and Latin. Not a single noun in Modern English shows any peculiarities in its morphology due to its denoting a male or a female being. Thus, the words husband and wife do not show any difference in their forms due to the peculiarities of their lexical meanings.

NUMBER

The distinction between singular and plural in English nouns is primarily morphological, though there are supporting features of lim­ited collocation with other items, determiners, numerals and verbs. Thus, "a", "one", "every", "much", "this", "that" pattern only with singulars; numerals above "one", "many", "these", "those", only with plurals; so, in the case of central nouns, do groups without determin­er ("Sheep grazed in the fields") (some speak here of zero-determin­er, since the determiner is not just absent, but by its absence contrib­utes an identifiable meaning to the whole utterance). This restriction of patterning may, as in the example just given, be the only indica­tion of plurality. Those verb-forms which we may briefly label "-s forms" pattern only with singulars ("The sheep is/was in the field"; "The sheep are/were in the field") - and this may be the only sign of singularity (in marginal nouns and names, but not with central nouns). But in the great majority of cases number-variation is indicated by morphological change, and if there is only one indication, it is most often this one. That is why we speak of the distinction as primarily morphological; but equally we must recognize that noun singular and plural are established not by a single criterion but by family resem­blances. The lack of an invariable criterion means that sometimes number is not clear (as in "The sheep ate up every scrap of grass"), but even internally ambiguous sentences are usually clarified by con­text (linguistic or situational).

Two types of morphological patterning must be distinguished in the pairing of singular and plural forms of nouns.

a) The first constitutes in any one idiolect, a virtually closed class, and consists commonly of the pairing of:

1) ox with oxen

2) man with men

3) foot with feet etc.

b) The second type of morphological change is much more com­mon, but can be dealt with much more briefly, because a generaliza­tion can be made about it. All nouns not catered for by the provi­sions of (a) have this second kind of pluralisation, and we have already frequently referred to it as the open-class kind. It is found, generally speaking, not only in the (literally) countless nouns already in the language but also in the vast majority of newcomers being adopted. In this class the change for the plural consists of adding a final mor-pheme (suffix) realized in 3 distinct phonemic forms according to the character of the final phoneme of the base: boy - boys [boiz]; cup [kap]: cups [kapz]; judge [d3Ad3J: judges [d^dpiz].

The functions of the singular-plural distinction in nouns have so far only been roughly indicated. They are primarily referential in character, and two concurrent systems must be distinguished. In formal speech and writing the distinction is most often between singular as referring to none or one, and plural as referring to more than one. But in informal and unself-conscious usage, the distinction is usually between one (sin­gular) and other-than-one (plural). For instance, according to one's "style", both the following sentences are possible in reference to the same situation: "No children were there" and "No child was there".

It is important to be clear about what it is that is being referred to - not an object or concept single or not-single in itself, but one or other-than-one of the referent of the noun in question. Thus, there is inherently no special problem about the singular of a word like "crowd" because a crowd is necessarily made up of a lot of persons, , any more than there is about the word "person" because a person is necessarily made up of a lot of cells.

Modern English, as most other languages, distinguishes between two numbers, singular and plural.

The essential meaning of singular and plural seems clear enough: the singular number shows that one object is meant, and the plural shows that more than one object is meant. Thus, the opposition is "one — more than one". This holds good for many nouns: table — tables, pupil — pupils, dog — dogs, etc. However, language facts are not always so simple as that. The category of number in English nouns gives rise to several problems which claim special attention.

First of all, it is to be noted that there is some difference between, say, three houses and three hours. Whereas three houses are three separate objects existing side by side, three hours are a continuous period of time measured by a certain agreed unit of duration. The same, of course, would apply to such expressions as three miles, three acres, etc.

If we now turn to such plurals as waters (e. g. the waters of the Atlantic), or snows (e.g. "A Daughter of the Snows", the title of a story by Jack London), we shall see that we are drifting further away from the original meaning of the plural number. In the first place, no numeral could be used with nouns of this kind. We could not possibly say three waters, or three snows. We cannot say how many waters we mean when we use this noun in the plural number. What, then, is the real difference in meaning between water and waters, snow and snows, etc.? It is fairly obvious that the plural form in every case serves to denote a vast stretch of water (e. g. an ocean), or of snow, or rather of ground covered by snow (e. g. in the arctic regions of Canada), etc. In the case of water and waters we can press the point still further and state that the water of the Atlantic refers to its physical or chemical properties (e. g. the water of the Atlantic contains a considerable portion of salt), whereas the waters of the Atlantic refers to a geographical idea: it denotes a seascape and has, as such, a peculiar stylistic value which the water of the Atlantic certainly lacks. 1 So we see that between the singular and the plural an additional difference of meaning has developed.

Now, the difference between the two numbers may increase to such a degree that the plural form develops a completely new meaning which the singular has not got at all. Thus, for example, the plural form colours has the meaning 'banner' which is restricted to the plural (e. g. to serve under the colours of liberty). In a similar manner, the plural attentions has acquired the meaning 'wooing' (pay attentions to a young lady). A considerable amount of examples in point have been collected by O. Jespersen.2

Since, in these cases, a difference in lexical meaning develops between the plural and the singular, it is natural to say that the plural form has been lexicalised.3 It is not our task here to go into details about the specific peculiarities of meaning which may develop in the plural form of a noun. This is a matter of lexicology rather than of grammar. What is essential from the grammatical viewpoint is the very fact that a difference in meaning which is purely grammatical in its origins is apt under certain conditions to be overshadowed by a lexical difference.

Pluralia Tantum and Singularia Tantum

We must also consider here two types of nouns differing from all others in the way of number: they have not got the usual two number forms, but only one form. The nouns which have only a plural and no singular are usually termed "pluralia tantum" (which is the Latin for "plural only"), and those which have only a singular and no plural are termed "singularia tantum" (the Latin for "singular only'').

Among the pluralia tantum are the nouns trousers, scissors. As is obvious from these examples, they include nouns of two types. On the one hand, there are the nouns which denote material objects consisting of two halves (trousers, scissors, etc.); on the other, there are those which denote a more or less indefinite plurality (e. g. environs' areas surrounding some place on all sides'; dregs 'various small things remaining at the bottom of a vessel after the liquid has been poured out of it', etc.). If we compare the English pluralia tantum with the Russian, we shall find that in some cases they correspond to each other (e. g., trousers — брюки, scissors — ножницы, environs— окрестности, etc.), while in others they do not (квасцы — alum, деньги — money, etc.). This seems to depend on a different, view of the objects in question reflected by the English and the Russian language respectively. The reason why a given object is denoted by a pluralia tantum noun in this or that language is not always quite clear.

Close to this group of pluralia tantum nouns are also some names of sciences, e. g. mathematics, physics, phonetics, also politics, and some names of diseases, e. g. measles, mumps, rickets. The reason for this seems to be that, for example, mathematics embrace a whole series of various scientific disciplines, and measles are accompanied by the appearance of a number of separate inflamed spots on the skin (rash). However, the reasons are less obvious in the case of phonetics, for instance. 1Now, it is typical of English that some of these pluralia tantum may, as it were, cease to be plural. They may occasionally, or even regularly, be accompanied by the indefinite article, and if they are the subject of a sentence the predicate verb may stand in the singular.

This way of treating pluralia tantum, which would be unthinkable in Russian, is of course connected with the structure of English as a whole.

The possibility of treating a plural form as if it were singular is also seen in the use of the phrase the United Nations, which may, when it is the subject of a sentence, have the predicate verb in the singular, e. g. the United Nations is a world organisation.

Examples of a phrase including a noun in the plural being modified by a pronoun in the singular and thus shown to be apprehended as a singular are by no means rare. Here are a few typical examples. I myself still wonder at that six weeks of calm madness. . . (CARY) The unity of the period of time, measured in the usual units of months, weeks, and days, is thus brought out very clearly. Bessie, during that twenty-four hours, had spent a night with Alice and a day with Muriel... (CARY) The unity of the space of time referred to is even more obvious in this example than in the preceding one; twenty-four hours is a commonly received unit of measurement of time (in Russian this would be expressed by a single noun — сутки). The variant those twenty-jour hours would be inappropriate here, as it would imply that the statement was referring to every single hour of the twenty-four taken separately.

This way of showing the unity of a certain quantity of space or time by modifying the phrase in question by a pronoun in the singular, and also (if the phrase be the subject of the sentence) by using the predicate verb in the singular, appears to be a very common thing in present-day English.

The direct opposite of pluralia tantum are the singularia tantum, i. e. the nouns which have no plural form. Among these we must first note some nouns denoting material substance, such as milk, butter, quicksilver, etc., and also names of abstract notions, such as peace, usefulness, incongruity, etc. Nouns of this kind express notions which are, strictly speaking, outside the sphere of number: e. g. milk, or fluency. 1 But in the morphological and syntactical system of the English language a noun cannot stand outside the category of number. If the noun is the subject of a sentence, the predicate verb (if it is in the present tense) will have to be either singular or plural. With the nouns just mentioned the predicate verb is always singular. This is practically the only external sign (alongside of the absence of a plural inflection in the noun itself) which definitely shows the noun to be singular.

Some nouns denoting substance, or material, may have a plural form, if they are used to denote either an object made of the material or a special kind of substance, or an object exhibiting the quality denoted by the noun. Thus, the noun wine, as well as the noun milk, denotes a certain substance, but it has a plural form wines used to denote several special kinds of wine. The noun iron, as well as the noun quicksilver, denotes a metal, but it may be used in the plural if it denotes several objects made of that metal (утюги). The noun beauty, as well as the noun ugliness, denotes a certain quality presented as an object, but it may be used in the plural to denote objects exhibiting that quality, e. g. the beauties of nature; His daughters were all beauties. Many more examples of a similar kind might be found. Accordingly, the nouns wine, iron, and beauty cannot be called singularia tantum, although in their chief application they no more admit of a plural form than milk, quicksilver, or ugliness.

Collective Nouns and Nouns of Multitude

Certain nouns denoting groups of human beings (family, government, party, etc.) and also of animals (cattle, poultry, etc.)

The question how much? could of course be asked with reference to milk, and the answer might be, a bottle of milk. This would apply to quantity, not to number. With the noun fluency the question how much? would not make sense.

Nouns of Multitude can be used in two different ways: either they are taken to denote the group as a whole, and in that case they are treated as singulars, and usually termed "collective nouns" (in a restricted sense of the term); or else they are taken to denote the group as consisting of a certain number of individual human beings (or animals), and in that case they are usually termed "nouns of multitude".

The difference between the two applications of such nouns may be briefly exemplified by a pair of examples: My family is small, and My family are good speakers. 1 It is quite obvious here that in the one sentence the characteristic "small" applies to the family as a whole, while in the other sentence the characteristic "good speakers" applies to every single member of the family ("everyone of them is a good speaker" is what is meant, but certainly not "everyone of them is small"). The same consideration would also apply to such sentences as The cattle were grazing in the field. It is also quite possible to say, Many cattle were grazing in the field, where the use of many (not much) clearly shows that cattle is apprehended as a plural.

The following bit of dialogue is curious, as the noun board, which is the subject of the first sentence, is here connected with a predicate verb in the singular, but is replaced by a plural pronoun in the second sentence: "Does the Board know of this?" "Yes," said John, "they fully approve the scheme." (A. WILSON)

With the noun people the process seems to have gone further than with any other noun of this kind. There is, on the one hand, the noun people, singular, with its plural peoples (meaning 'nations'), and there is, on the other hand, the noun people apprehended as a plural (There were fifty people in the hall) and serving as a kind of plural to the noun person (There was only one person in the hall). People can of course be modified by the words many and few and by cardinal numerals (twenty people).

In the following sentence the word people is even modified by the phrase attribute one or two, although the numeral one in itself could not possibly be an attribute to the noun people in this sense: One or two people looked at him curiously, but no one said anything. (A. WILSON) Strictly speaking we might expect the phrase one man or two people; however, this variant does not appear to be used anywhere. The perfect possibility of the phrase two people appears to be sufficient ground for making the phrase one or two people possible as well.

Recently a peculiar view of the category of number was put forward by A. Isachenko.2 According to this view, the essential meaning of the category (in nouns) is not that of quantity, but of discreteness (расчлененность). The plural, in this view, expresses fundamentally the notion of something consisting of distinguishable parts, and the meaning of quantity in the usual sense would then appear to be a result of combining the fundamental meaning of the category as such with the lexical meaning of the noun used in the plural. Thus, in scissors the category of plural number, which, in Isachenko's view, expresses discreteness, combines with the lexical meaning of the noun, which denotes an object consisting of two halves, whereas in houses the same meaning of the grammatical category combines with the lexical meaning of the noun, which denotes separate objects not coalescing together, as in the case of scissors. Accordingly, the resulting meaning is that of a number of separate objects, i. e. the plural number in the usual sense of the term. These views put forward by A. Isachenko throw a new light on the problem of number in nouns and certainly deserve close attention. It is yet too early to say whether they can provide a final solution to the complex problem of number in nouns.