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5. The category of the names of living beings and lifeless objects
Some linguists believe that besides the categories of number, case, gender, the noun can also express some other categories. Thus, according to Yu.O. Zhluktenko [5; 46-47], there can be differentiated the category of the names of living beings and lifeless objects (категор1я назв icTOT та неживих предмет1в).
According to their semantics nouns always denote living beings, lifeless objects or abstract notions. This semantic division can be reflected as well in the grammatical structure of the noun. In English some differences in this relation exist only by the usage of the possessive case, characteristic usually of nouns which are the names of living beings. The possessive case though is also used with quite a large number of nouns denoting lifeless objects or abstract notions.

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Nouns can also differ one from the other by the fact that the names of living beings correlate with personal pronouns he, she and the relative pronoun who, whereas the names of lifeless objects correlate with the personal-objective pronoun (особово-предметний) pronoun it and relative pronouns - that, which. Above it was mentioned that these correlation are of the lexical character but not of the grammar one. That is why it can be considered that the category of names of living beings and lifeless objects is not expressed in the grammatical structure of English nouns.
Somehow the other way it happens in Ukrainian where there exist some formal and some grammatical differences between nouns denoting living beings and lifeless objects. These differences are not numerous: nouns of the masculine gender (names of living beings) have the form of the accusative case of both numbers similar with the form of the genitive case (немае батька, бачу батька; не було брата, покликали брата, братгв), and the names of lifeless objects have the form of the accusative case similar with the form of the nominative case (стогтъ cmm, бачу emu; це наш deip, банимо deip, двори). But nouns of the feminine and neuter gender in singular are not differentiated according to this category: all the nouns of the feminine gender in -а, -я have the ending -у, -ю in the accusative case (бачу жтку, чую теню) and nouns of the feminine gender with the final consonant and all the nouns of the neuter gender have the form of the accusative case similar with the form of the nominative case (читаю noeicmb, вгдчиняю вгкно). Only in plural form of nouns of the feminine gender in -а, -я there also is a formal difference between the names of living beings and lifeless objects, e.g.: стоять бачимо жток but лунають nicui, чуемо nicui. The consistent (послщовний) grammatical expression of the category of names of living beings and lifeless objects is pertaining in Ukrainian only to the names of persons. This noun class has also the peculiar vocative case form (особлива клична вщмшкова форма): хлопче, жгнко etc. The names of lifeless objects can be used in the vocative form only in the case of personification, e.g.: О земле, велеттв роди! (П. Тичина). But in general there is also a number of deviations from the consistent expression of this category.