Английского

§ 3. As a part of speech, the noun is also characterised by a set of 
formal features determining its specific status in the lexical para-
digm of nomination. It has its word-building distinctions, including 
typical suffixes, compound stem models, conversion patterns. It 
discriminates the grammatical categories of gender, number, case, 
article determination, which will be analysed below. 
* See: Смирницкий А. И. Лексикология английского языка. М., 1956, § 133; 
[Жигадло В. Н., Иванова И. П., Иофик Л. Л. § 255].

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The cited formal features taken together are relevant for the divi-
sion of nouns into several subclasses, which are identified by 
means of explicit classificational criteria. The most general and 
rigorously delimited subclasses of nouns are grouped into four op-
positional pairs. 
The first nounal subclass opposition differentiates proper and 
common nouns. The foundation of this division is "type of nomina-
tion". The second subclass opposition differentiates animate and 
inanimate nouns on the basis of "form of existence". The third sub-
class opposition differentiates human and non-human nouns on the 
basis of "personal quality". The fourth subclass opposition 
differentiates countable and uncountable nouns on the basis of 
"quantitative structure". 
Somewhat less explicitly and rigorously realised is the division of 
English nouns into concrete and abstract. 
The order in which the subclasses are presented is chosen by con-
vention, not by categorially relevant features: each subclass corre-
lation is reflected on the whole of the noun system; this means that 
the given set of eight subclasses cannot be structured hierarchically 
in any linguistically consistent sense (some sort of hierarchical re-
lations can be observed only between animate — inanimate and 
human — non-human groupings). Consider the following exam-
ples: There were three Marys in our company. The cattle have been 
driven out into the pastures. 
The noun Mary used in the first of the above sentences is at one 
and the same time "proper" (first subclass division), "animate" 
(second subclass division), "human" (third subclass division), 
"countable" (fourth subclass division). The noun cattle used in the 
second sentence is at one and the same time "common" (first sub-
class division), "animate" (second subclass division), "non-human" 
(third subclass division), "uncountable" (fourth subclass division). 
The subclass differentiation of nouns constitutes a foundation for 
their selectional syntagmatic combinability both among themselves 
and with other parts of speech. In the selectional aspect of combi-
nability, the subclass features form the corresponding selectional 
bases. 
In particular, the inanimate selectional base of combinability can 
be pointed out between the noun subject and the verb predicate in 
the following sentence: The sandstone was crumbling. (Not: *The 
horse was crumbling.) 
The animate selectional base is revealed between the noun 

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subject and the verb in the following sentence: The poor creature 
was laming. (Not: *The tree was laming.) 
The human selectional base underlies the connection between the 
nouns in the following combination: John's love of music (not: 
*the cat's love of music). 
The phenomenon of subclass selection is intensely analysed as part 
of current linguistic research work.