There are a huge number of various phenomena in the world. For each of them in the language there is a name. If it names a whole group of objects, then such a word is a common noun. When there is a need to name one object from a number of homogeneous ones, then the language has its own names for this.
Common and proper nouns
Common nouns are such nouns that designate at once a whole class of objects united by some common features. For example:
- Every water stream can be called in one word - a river.
- Any plant with a trunk and branches is a tree.
- All animals that are gray in color, large in size, with a trunk instead of a nose are called elephants.
- Giraffe is any animal with a long neck, small horns and high growth.
Proper names - nouns that highlightone object from the whole class of similar phenomena. For example:
- The dog's name is Druzhok.
- My cat's name is Murka.
- This river is the Volga.
- The deepest lake is Baikal.
When we know what our own name is, we can do the following task.
Practical task 1
Which nouns are proper names?
Moscow; city; Earth; planet; bug; dog; Vlad; boy; radio station; Lighthouse.
Capital letter in proper names
As you can see from the first task, proper names, unlike common nouns, are written with a capital letter. Sometimes it happens that the same word is spelled first with a small letter, then with a capital:
- Eagle bird, city Orel, ship "Eagle";
- strong love, girl Love;
- early spring lotion "Spring";
- river willow, Iva restaurant.
If you know what your own name is, then it is easy to understand the reason for this phenomenon: words denoting single objects are capitalized to separate them from others of the same kind.
Quotation marks for own names
To know how to correctly use quotation marks in your own names, you need to learn the following: proper names denoting phenomena in the world created by human hands are isolated. Separation signs in this case are quotation marks:
- New World newspaper;
- DIY magazine;
- Amta Factory;
- Hotel Astoria;
- Swift ship.
Transition of words from common nouns to proper ones and vice versa
It cannot be said that the distinction between the categories of proper names and common nouns is unshakable. Sometimes common nouns become proper names. We talked about the rules for writing them above. What are your own names? Examples of transition from the category of common nouns:
- cream "Spring";
- perfume "Jasmine";
- cinema "Dawn";
- Rabotnitsa magazine.
Proper names also easily become generalized names of homogeneous phenomena. Below are their own names, which can already be called common nouns:
- These young don Juan to me!
- We mark in Newtons, but we don’t know the formulas;
- You are all Pushkins until you write the dictation.
Practice 2
Which sentences contain proper nouns?
1. We decided to meet at the Ocean.
2. In the summer, I swam in the real ocean.
3. Anton decided to give his beloved the perfume "Rose".
4. The rose was cut in the morning.
5. We are all Socrates in our kitchen.
6. This idea was first put forward by Socrates.
Classification of proper names
It would seem easy to learn what a proper name is, but you still need to repeat the main thing - proper namesare assigned to one subject from a whole series. It is advisable to classify the following series of phenomena:
| Series of phenomena | Own names, examples |
| Names of people, surnames, patronymics | Ivan, Vanya, Ilyushka, Tatyana, Tanechka, Tanyukha, Ivanov, Lysenko, Gennady Ivanovich Belykh, Alexander Nevsky. |
| Animal names | Bobik, Murka, Dawn, Ryaba, Karyuha, Gray neck. |
| Geographic names | Lena, Sayans, Baikal, Azov, Black, Novosibirsk. |
| Names of objects created by human hands | Red October, Rot Front, Aurora, He alth, Kitty, Chanel No. 6, Kalashnikov. |
The names of people, surnames, patronymics, nicknames of animals are animate nouns, and geographical names and designations of everything created by man are inanimate. This is how their own names are characterized in terms of the category of animation.
Own plural names
It is necessary to dwell on one point, which is due to the semantics of the studied language units. Features of proper names are that they are rarely used in the plural. You can use them to refer to multiple items as long as they have the same proper name:
- There are several Alexanders in our class.
- There were six in the younger groupNastya.
Surname can be used in plural. number in two cases. First, if it denotes a family, people who are related:
- It was customary for the Ivanovs to gather for dinner with the whole family.
- The Kareninas lived in St. Petersburg.
- The Zhurbin dynasty had a century of work experience at the metallurgical plant for everyone.
Secondly, if namesakes are called:
- Hundreds of Ivanovs can be found in the registry.
- They are my full namesakes: Grigoriev Alexandra.
Proper names - inconsistent definitions
One of the tasks of the Unified State Examination in the Russian language requires knowledge of what your own name is. Graduates are required to establish correspondences between sentences and grammatical errors made in them. One of these is a violation in the construction of a sentence with an inconsistent application. The fact is that the proper name, which is an inconsistent application, does not change in cases with the main word. Examples of such sentences with grammatical errors are given below:
- Lermontov was not happy with his poem "The Demon" (the poem "The Demon").
- Dostoevsky described the spiritual crisis of his time in The Brothers Karamazov (in The Brothers Karamazov).
- A lot is said and written about the film "Taras Bulba" (About the film "Taras Bulba").
If the proper name acts as a complement, that is, in the absence of a definedwords, it can change its form:
- Lermontov was not happy with his "Demon".
- Dostoevsky described the spiritual crisis of his time in The Brothers Karamazov.
- A lot is said and written about Taras Bulba.
Practice 3
Which sentences are misspelled?
1. We stood for a long time at the painting "Barge Haulers on the Volga".
2. In A Hero of His Time, Lermontov sought to uncover the problems of his era.
3. The "Journal of Pechorin" reveals the vices of a secular person.
4). The story "Maxim Maksimych" reveals the image of a wonderful person.
5. In his opera The Snow Maiden, Rimsky-Korsakov sang love as the highest ideal of mankind.
