THE NOUN AND ITS GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES

19, 21. ИСМ ВА ДАРАЧАХОИ ГРАММАТИКИИ ОН.

What is a noun?

A noun is a part of speech that is used to name a person, place, thing, quality or action. A noun can function as a subject, object, complement, appositive, or object of a preposition. Nouns have a grammatical category called “number”. The values of number are singular (one) and plural (two or more).

1. The boy is playing.

2. The boys are playing.

In sentence 1, “boy” is in its basic form, giving its “number” the value of singular. There is one boy and the related auxiliary verb “to be” is in the singular form (is).

In sentence 2, the form of “boy” has changed to “boys”, giving its “number” the value of plural. There is more than one boy and the related “to be” is in the plural form (are).

In the above example, the “number” of “boy” influences the form of boy, and also influences the form of a related word (be). “Number” is a “grammatical category”.

Number

Number is a property of nouns and pronouns, and indicates quantity. Number has two values:

*singular: indicates one only

*plural: indicates two or more

Number

Singular. Plural

Noun. Boy. Boys

Pronoun. I we

Gender

Natural gender is a property of pronouns, and differentiates the sexes. Natural gender has three values:

*masculine: indicates male

*feminine: indicates female

*neuter: indicates everything else

Gender

Masculine. Feminine. Neuter

He/him/his. She/her/hers. It/its