Every person uses several hundred nouns every day in his speech. However, not everyone will be able to answer the question of which category a particular word belongs to: proper names or common nouns, and whether there is a difference between them. Meanwhile, not only written literacy depends on this simple knowledge, but also the ability to correctly understand what is read, because often, only by reading a word, you can understand whether it is a name or just the name of a thing.
Noun: what is it
Before you figure out which nouns are called proper and which are common nouns, it's worth remembering what they are.
Nouns are words that answer the questions "What?", "Who?" and denoting the namethings or persons (“table”, “person”), they change according to declensions, genders, numbers and cases. In addition, words related to this part of speech are proper / common nouns.
The concept of a noun: common nouns and proper nouns
Except for rare exceptions, all nouns belong to the category of either proper or common nouns.
Common nouns include summarized names of homogeneous things or phenomena that may differ from each other in some features, but will still be called one word. For example, the noun "toy" is a common noun, although it generalizes the names of various objects: cars, dolls, bears and other things from this group. In Russian, as in most others, common nouns are always written with a small letter.
Proper nouns are the names of individuals, things, places or persons that stand out. For example, the word "doll" is a common noun that names a whole category of toys, but the name of the popular brand of dolls "Barbie" is a proper name. All proper names are capitalized.
It is worth noting that common nouns, unlike proper nouns, carry a certain lexical meaning. For example, when it says "doll", it becomes clear that we are talking about a toy, but when they simply call the name "Masha" outsidecontext of a common noun, it is not clear who or what it is - a girl, a doll, the name of a brand, a hairdresser or a chocolate bar.
Ethnonyms
As mentioned above, nouns are proper and common nouns. So far, linguists have not yet come to a consensus on the relationship between these two categories. There are 2 common views on this question: according to one, there is a clear dividing line between common nouns and proper nouns; according to another, the dividing line between these categories is not absolute due to the frequent transition of nouns from one category to another. Therefore, there are so-called "intermediate" words that do not belong to either proper or common nouns, although they have signs of both categories. These nouns include ethnonyms - words meaning the names of peoples, nationalities, tribes and other similar concepts.
Common nouns: examples and types
There are most common nouns in the vocabulary of the Russian language. All of them are usually divided into four types.
1. Specific - denote objects or phenomena that can be counted (people, birds and animals, flowers). For example: "adult", "child", "thrush", "shark", "ash", "violet". Specific common nouns almost always have plural and singular forms and are combined with quantitative numerals: "an adult - two adults", "one violet - five violets".
2. Abstract - denote concepts, feelings, objects that cannot be counted: "love", "he alth", "wit". Most often, this type of common noun is used only in the singular. If, for one reason or another, a noun of this type has acquired the plural ("fear - fears"), it loses its abstract meaning.
3. Real - denote substances that are homogeneous in composition, do not have separate objects: chemical elements (mercury), food (pasta), medicines (citramon) and other similar concepts. Real nouns are not countable, but they can be measured (kilogram of pasta). Words of this type of common noun have only one form of number: either plural or singular: “oxygen” is singular, “cream” is plural.
4. Collective - these are nouns, meaning a set of objects or persons of the same type, as a single, inseparable whole: "brotherhood", "humanity". Nouns of this kind are not countable and are used only in the singular form. However, you can use the words “a little”, “a few”, “few” and the like with them: a lot of kids, how many infantry and others.
Proper nouns: examples and types
Depending on the lexical meaning, these types of proper names are distinguishednouns:
1. Anthroponyms - names, surnames, pseudonyms, nicknames and nicknames of people: Vasilyeva Anastasia, George Sand.
2. Theonyms - names and names of deities: Zeus, Buddha.
3. Zoonyms - nicknames and nicknames of animals: dog Barbos, cat Marie.
4. All kinds of toponyms - geographical names, cities (Volgograd), reservoirs (Baikal), streets (Pushkin) and so on.
5. Aeronautonyms - the name of various spacecraft and aircraft: the Vostok spacecraft, the Mir interorbital station.
6. Names of works of art, literature, cinema, TV programs: "Mona Lisa", "Crime and Punishment", "Vertical", "Jumble".
7. Names of organizations, websites, brands: Oxford, Vkontakte, Milavitsa.
8. Names of holidays and other social events: Christmas, Independence Day.
9. Names of unique natural phenomena: Hurricane Isabel.
10. Names of unique buildings and objects: cinema "Rodina", sports complex "Olympic".
Transition of own to common nouns and vice versa
Since the language is not something abstract and is constantly influenced by both external and internal factors, words often change their category: proper ones turn into common nouns, and common nouns turn into proper nouns. Examples of this are quite common. So the natural phenomenon "frost" - from a common noun turned into its own noun, the surname Frost. The process of transition from common nouns to proper ones is calledonymization.
At the same time, the surname of the famous German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen, who was the first to discover X-rays, in the colloquial speech of the Russian language has long turned into the name of the study of something using the “X-ray” radiation he discovered. Such a process is called appellation, and such words are called eponyms.
How to differentiate
In addition to semantic differences, there are also grammatical ones that allow you to clearly distinguish between proper nouns and common nouns. The Russian language is quite practical in this regard. The category of common nouns, unlike proper nouns, as a rule, has both plural and singular forms: “artist - artists.”
At the same time, another category is almost always used only in the singular: Picasso is the artist's surname, singular. However, there are exceptions when proper nouns can be used in the plural. Examples of this name, originally used in the plural: the village of Bolshie Kabany. In this case, these proper nouns are often devoid of the singular: the mountains of the Carpathians.
Sometimes proper names can be used in the plural if they denote different persons or phenomena, but with identical names. For example: There are three Xenias in our class.
How to spell
If the writing of common nouns is quite simple: they are all written with a small letter, and the rest followsfollow the usual rules of the Russian language, then another category has some nuances that you need to know in order to correctly write proper nouns. Examples of incorrect spelling can often be found not only in the notebooks of negligent schoolchildren, but also in the documents of adults and respectable people.
In order to avoid such mistakes, you should learn a few simple rules:
1. All proper names, without exception, are capitalized, especially when it comes to the nicknames of legendary heroes: Richard the Lionheart. If a given name, surname or place name consists of two or more nouns, regardless of whether they are written separately or with a hyphen, each of these words must begin with a capital letter. An interesting example is the nickname of the main villain of the Harry Potter epic - the Dark Lord. Afraid to call him by his first name, the heroes called the evil wizard "He Who Must Not Be Named". In this case, all 4 words are capitalized, as this is the character's nickname.
2. If the name or title contains articles, particles and other service particles of speech, they are written with a small letter: Albrecht von Graefe, Leonardo da Vinci, but Leonardo DiCaprio. In the second example, the part "di" is capitalized, because in the original language it is written together with the surname Leonardo DiCaprio. This principle applies to many proper names of foreign origin. In oriental names indicating the social status of the particles "bey", "zul",“zade”, “pasha”, and the like, regardless of whether they stand in the middle of the word or are written with a small letter at the end. The same principle applies to spelling proper names with particles in other languages. German "von", "zu", "auf"; Spanish "de"; Dutch "van", "ter"; French "des", "du", "de la".
3. The particles “San-”, “Sen-”, “Saint-”, “Ben-” located at the beginning of the surname of foreign origin are written with a capital and a hyphen (Saint-Gemen); after O, there is always an apostrophe and the next letter is capitalized (O'Henry). The part "Mac-" should be written in turn with a hyphen, but often it is written together due to the approximation of the spelling to the original: McKinley, but McLane.
Once you have de alt with this rather simple topic (what is a noun, types of nouns and examples), you can once and for all save yourself from stupid, but rather unpleasant spelling mistakes and the need to constantly look in the dictionary to check yourself.
