What are common nouns, examples of nouns. How to determine whether a name is a proper name or a common noun

The noun is one of the most important parts of speech both in Russian and in many other Indian languages. European languages. In most languages, nouns are divided into proper and common nouns. This division is very important, since these categories different rules spelling.

The study of nouns in Russian schools begins in the second grade. Already at this age, children are able to understand the difference between proper names and common nouns.

Students usually learn this material easily. The main thing is to choose interesting exercises in which the rules are well remembered. In order to correctly distinguish nouns, a child must be able to generalize and assign familiar objects to a specific group (for example: “dishes”, “animals”, “toys”).

Own

Towards proper names in modern Russian language It is traditionally customary to refer to the names and nicknames of people, animal names and geographical names.

Here are typical examples:

A proper name can answer the question “who?” if we are talking about people and animals, as well as the question “what?” if we are talking about geographical names.

Common nouns

Unlike proper names, common nouns denote not the name of a specific person or the name of a specific locality, but the generalized name of a large group of objects. Here are classic examples:

Boy, girl, man, woman;
River, village, village, town, aul, kishlak, city, capital, country;
Animal, insect, bird;
Writer, poet, doctor, teacher.

Common nouns can answer both the question “who?” and the question “what?”. Typically, in discrimination exercises, primary schoolchildren are asked to choose suitable common noun for a group of proper names, For example:

You can build a task and vice versa: match proper names to common nouns.

What dog names do you know?
What are your favorite girl names?
What is a cow's name?
What are the names of the villages you visited?

Such exercises help children quickly learn the difference. When students have learned to distinguish one noun from another quickly and correctly, they can move on to learning spelling rules. These rules are simple, and students primary school absorb them well. For example, a simple and memorable rhyme can help children with this: “Names, surnames, nicknames, cities - everything with capital letter always written!”

Spelling Rules

In accordance with the rules of the modern Russian language, all proper names are written only with a capital letter. This rule is typical not only for Russian, but also for most other languages of Eastern and Western Europe. Capital letter at the beginning names, surnames, nicknames and geographical names are used to emphasize respectful attitude towards each person, animal, and locality.

Common nouns, on the contrary, are written with lowercase letter. However, exceptions to this rule are possible. This usually happens in fiction. For example, when Boris Zakhoder translated Alan Milne’s book “Winnie the Pooh and All-All-All,” the Russian writer deliberately used capital letters in the spelling of some common nouns, for example: “Big Forest”, “Great Expedition”, “Farewell Evening”. Zakhoder did this in order to emphasize the importance of certain phenomena and events for fairy-tale heroes.

This often occurs both in Russian and translated literature. This phenomenon can be seen especially often in adapted folklore - legends, fairy tales, epics. For example: “Magic Bird”, “Rejuvenating Apple”, “Dense Forest”, “Gray Wolf”.

In some languages, capitalization is capitalization- in writing names can be used in different cases. For example, in Russian and some European languages (French, Spanish) it is traditional to write the names of months and days of the week with a small letter. However, in English These common nouns are always written with a capital letter only. Capitalization of common nouns is also found in German.

When proper names become common nouns

In modern Russian there are situations when proper names can become common nouns. This happens quite often. Here's a classic example. Zoilus is the name of an ancient Greek critic who was very skeptical about many works of contemporary art and frightened the authors with his caustic negative reviews. When antiquity became a thing of the past, his name was forgotten.

Once Pushkin noticed that one of his works literary critics was received very ambiguously. And in one of his poems, he ironically called these critics “my zoiles,” implying that they were bile and sarcastic. Since then, the proper name “Zoil” has become a common noun and is used when talking about a person who unfairly criticizes or scolds something.

Many proper names from the works of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol have become household names. For example, stingy people are often called “pluskins”, and elderly women of narrow minds are often called “boxes”. And those who like to have their head in the clouds and are not at all interested in reality are often called “manila”. All these names came into the Russian language from the famous work “ Dead souls", where the writer brilliantly showed a whole gallery of landowner characters.

Proper names become common nouns quite often. However, the opposite also happens. A common noun can become a proper noun if it turns into the name of an animal or a nickname for a person. For example, a black cat may be called “Gypsy”, and a faithful dog may be called “Friend”.

Naturally, these words will be written with a capital letter, according to the rules for writing proper names. This usually happens if a nickname or nickname is given because a person (animal) has some pronounced qualities. For example, Donut was so nicknamed because he had overweight and looked like a donut, and Syrupchik - because he really loved drinking sweet water with syrup.

It is very important to distinguish proper names from common nouns. If junior schoolchildren If they don’t learn this, they won’t be able to correctly use capitalization when writing proper names. In this regard, the study of common nouns and proper nouns should occupy an important place in school curriculum Russian as a native and as a foreign language.

His definition is simple. Essentially, a common noun is a word that denotes people, animals, objects, abstract ideas and concepts. These do not include words meaning names of people, names of places, countries, cities, etc. These nouns are classified as proper nouns.

Thus, country is a common noun, and Russia is a proper name. Puma is the name of a wild animal, and in this case the noun puma is a common noun. And as the name of a well-known company that produces sportswear and shoes, Puma is a proper name.

Even in the first half of the last century, the word “apple” was unthinkable in the use of a proper name. It was used in its original meaning: that is, apple, fruit, fruit of the apple tree. Now Apple is both a proper noun and a common noun.

This happened after an unsuccessful three-month search by partners a suitable name for the company, when, in despair, the founder of the company Steve Jobs I decided to name it after my favorite fruit. The name has become a truly iconic American brand producing tablet computers, phones, and software.

Examples of common nouns

Finding examples of common nouns will not be difficult. Let's start with the everyday objects around us. Imagine: you wake up in the morning. What do you see when you open your eyes? Of course, an alarm clock. An alarm clock is an object that wakes us up in the morning, and from a linguistic point of view, it is a common noun. Leaving the house, you meet your neighbor. There are a lot of hurrying people on the street. You notice that the sky has frowned. Get on the bus and go to the office. Neighbor, people, sky, office, bus, street - common nouns

Types of common nouns

In the Russian language, common nouns are divided into 4 main types:

Specific concepts (people, animals, objects, plants). These are designations of objects/persons in the singular: student, neighbor, classmate, seller, driver, cat, puma, house, table, apple. Such nouns can be combined with
Abstract concepts. This is a type of noun with an abstract abstract meaning. They can refer to phenomena scientific concepts, characteristic, condition, quality: peace, war, friendship, suspicion, danger, kindness, relativity.
Real nouns. As the name suggests, these nouns denote substances. These may include medicinal products, food products, chemical elements, building materials, coal, petroleum, butter, aspirin, flour, sand, oxygen, silver.
Collective nouns. These nouns represent a collection of persons or objects that are united and belong to a certain conceptual category: midges, infantry, foliage, relatives, youth, people. Such nouns are usually used in the singular. Often combined with the words a lot (a little), a little: a lot of midges, a little youth. Some of them can be used as people - peoples.

) a whole group of objects that have common characteristics, and naming these objects according to their belonging to a given category: article, house, computer etc.

A wide group of common nouns is represented by terms of a scientific and technical nature, including the terms physical geography, toponymy, linguistics, art, etc. If the orthographic sign of all proper names is to write them with a capital letter, then common nouns are written with a lowercase letter.

Transition of onym to appellative without affixation in linguistics it is called appeal (deonymization) . For example:

(English Charles Boycott → English to boycott);
Labrador Peninsula → labradorite (stone);
Newfoundland → Newfoundland (dog breed).

The transition of a common noun to a proper one may be accompanied by the loss of its previous meaning, for example:

right hand (from other Russian. desn "right") → river "Desna". The Desna is a left tributary of the Dnieper.
Velikaya → Velikaya River (a small river in the Russian North).

A common noun can denote not only a category of objects, but also any individual object within this category. The latter happens when:

The individual characteristics of the object do not matter. For example: " If you don't tease a dog, it won't bite." - the word "dog" refers to any dog, not any specific one.
In the situation described, there is only one item of this category. For example: " Meet me on the corner at noon“- the interlocutors know which corner will serve as the meeting place.
Individual characteristics of an object are described by additional definitions. For example: " I remember the day I first set sail" - a specific day stands out among other days.

The boundary between common nouns and proper names is not unshakable: common nouns can turn into proper names in the form of names and nicknames ( onymization), and proper names - into common nouns ( deonymization).

Onimization(transition appellative V them):

Kalita (bag) → Ivan Kalita;

Deonymization. The following types of such transitions are noted:

person's name → person; Pechora (river) → Pechora (city)
person's name → thing: Kravchuk → kravchuchka, Colt → colt;
name of place → item: Cashmere → cashmere (fabric);
person's name → action: Boycott → boycott;
name of place → action: Earth → land;
person's name → unit of measurement: Ampere → ampere, Henry → henry, Newton → newton;

Proper names that have become common nouns are called eponyms, sometimes they are used in a humorous sense (for example, “Aesculapius” - doctor, “Schumacher” - a lover of fast driving, etc.).

A striking example of transformation before our eyes own name V eponym is the word kravchuchka - a widespread name for a handcart in Ukraine, named after the 1st president Leonid Kravchuk, during whose reign shuttlecraft became widespread, and the word kravchuchka in everyday life it has practically replaced other names for handcarts.

Nouns are divided into proper and common nouns according to their meaning. The very definitions of this part of speech have Old Slavonic roots.

The term “common noun” comes from “discrimination”, “criticism”, and is used for common name homogeneous, similar objects and phenomena, and “own” means “peculiarity,” an individual person or a single object. This naming distinguishes it from other objects of the same type.

For example, the common noun “river” defines all rivers, but the Dnieper and Yenisei are proper names. These are constant grammatical features of nouns.

What are proper names in Russian?

A proper name is the exclusive name of an object, phenomenon, person, different from others, standing out from other multiple concepts.

These are names and nicknames of people, names of countries, cities, rivers, seas, astronomical objects, historical events, holidays, books and magazines, names of animals.

Also, ships, enterprises, various institutions, product brands and much more that require a special name can have their own names. May consist of one or more words.

Spelling is determined by the following rule: all proper names are written with a capital letter. For example: Vanya, Morozko, Moscow, Volga, Kremlin, Russia, Rus', Christmas, Battle of Kulikovo.

Names that have a conditional or symbolic meaning are enclosed in quotation marks. These are the names of books and various publications, organizations, companies, events, etc.

Compare: Bolshoi Theater, But Sovremennik Theatre, the Don River and the Romance Quiet Don", the play "The Thunderstorm", the newspaper "Pravda", the motor ship "Admiral Nakhimov", the stadium "Lokomotiv", the factory "Bolshevichka", the museum-reserve "Mikhailovskoye".

Please note: the same words, depending on the context, can be common nouns or proper words and are written according to the rules. Compare: bright sun and the star Sun, native earth and planet Earth.

Proper names, consisting of several words and denoting a single concept, are emphasized as one member of the sentence.

Let's look at an example: Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov wrote a poem that made him famous. This means that in this sentence the subject will be three words (first name, patronymic and last name).

Types and examples of proper nouns

Proper names are studied by the linguistic science of onomastics. This term is derived from an ancient Greek word and means “the art of naming”

This area of linguistics studies information about the name of a specific, individual object and identifies several types of names.

Anthroponyms are used to refer to proper first and last names. historical figures, folklore or literary characters, famous and ordinary people, their nicknames or pseudonyms. For example: Abram Petrovich Hannibal, Ivan the Terrible, Lenin, Lefty, Judas, Koschey the Immortal.

Toponyms study the appearance of geographical names, names of cities, streets, which may reflect the specifics of the landscape, historical events, religious motives, lexical features of the indigenous population, economic characteristics. For example: Rostov-on-Don, Kulikovo Field, Sergiev Posad, Magnitogorsk, Strait of Magellan, Yaroslavl, Black Sea, Volkhonka, Red Square, etc.

Astronims and cosmonyms analyze the appearance of the names of celestial bodies, constellations, and galaxies. Examples: Earth, Mars, Venus, Comet Halley, Stozhary, Ursa Major, Milky Way.

There are other sections in onomastics that study the names of deities and mythological heroes, names of nationalities, names of animals, etc., helping to understand their origin.

Common noun - what is it?

These nouns name any concept from many similar ones. They have lexical meaning, that is, informativeness, in contrast to proper names, which do not have such a property and only name, but do not express the concept, do not reveal its properties.

The name doesn't tell us anything Sasha, it only identifies a specific person. In the phrase girl Sasha, we find out age and gender.

Examples of common nouns

All the realities of the world around us are called common names. These are words that express specific concepts: people, animals, natural phenomena, objects, etc.

Examples: doctor, student, dog, sparrow, thunderstorm, tree, bus, cactus.

Can denote abstract entities, qualities, states or characteristics:courage, understanding, fear, danger, peace, power.

How to determine proper or common noun

A common noun can be distinguished by its meaning, since it names an object or phenomenon related to the homogeneous, and by its grammatical feature, because it can vary in numbers ( year - years, person - people, cat - cats).

But many nouns (collective, abstract, real) do not have a plural form ( childhood, darkness, oil, inspiration) or singular ( frost, weekdays, darkness). Are being written common nouns with a small letter.

Proper nouns are the distinctive names of individual objects. They can only be used in singular or plural ( Moscow, Cheryomushki, Baikal, Catherine II).

But if different persons or objects are named, they can be used in the plural ( Ivanov family, both Americas). They are written with a capital letter, if necessary in quotation marks.

Worth noting: There is a constant exchange between proper and common nouns; they tend to move into the opposite category. Common words faith, hope, love became proper names in the Russian language.

Many borrowed names were also originally common nouns. For example, Peter – “stone” (Greek), Victor – “winner” (Latin), Sophia – “wisdom” (Greek).

Often in history, proper names become common nouns: hooligan (English Houlihan family of ill repute), Volt (physicist Alessandro Volta), Colt (inventor Samuel Colt). Literary characters can become household names: Donquixote, Judas, Plyushkin.

Toponyms gave names to many objects. For example: cashmere fabric (Kashmir Valley of Hindustan), cognac (province in France). At the same time animate name the proper becomes an inanimate common noun.

And vice versa, it happens that generic concepts become non-common nouns: Lefty, cat Fluffy, Signor Tomato.

In any language, the proper name occupies an important place. It appeared in ancient times, when people began to understand and differentiate objects, which required assigning them separate names. The designation of objects occurred based on its distinctive features or functions so that the name contains data about the subject in a symbolic or factual form. Over time, proper names have become a subject of interest in various areas: geography, literature, psychology, history and of course, linguistics.

The originality and meaningfulness of the phenomenon being studied led to the emergence of the science of proper names - onomastics.

A proper name is a noun that names an object or phenomenon in a specific sense, distinguishing it from other similar objects or phenomena, distinguishing them from a group of homogeneous concepts.

An important feature of this name is that it is associated with the named object and carries information about it without affecting the concept. They are written with a capital letter, and sometimes the names are put in quotation marks (Mariinsky Theater, Peugeot car, play Romeo and Juliet).

Proper names, or onyms, are used in the singular or plural. Plural appears in cases where several objects have similar designations. For example, the Sidorov family, the namesake Ivanovs.

Functions of proper names

Proper names, as units of language, perform various functions:

Nominative- assigning names to objects or phenomena.
Identifying- selecting a specific item from a variety.
Differentiating- the difference between an object and similar objects within the same class.
Expressive-emotional function- expression of a positive or negative attitude towards the object of the nomination.
Communicative- nomination of a person, object or phenomenon during communication.
Deictic- an indication of an object at the moment of pronouncing its name.

Classification of onyms

Proper names in all their originality are divided into many types:

Anthroponyms - names of people:

name (Ivan, Alexey, Olga);
surname (Sidorov, Ivanov, Brezhnev);
patronymic (Viktorovich, Aleksandrovna);
nickname (Gray - for the name Sergei, Lame - based on external characteristics);
pseudonym (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov - Lenin, Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili - Stalin).

2. Toponyms - geographical names:

oikonyms - populated areas (Moscow, Berlin, Tokyo);
hydronyms - rivers (Danube, Seine, Amazon);
oronyms - mountains (Alps, Andes, Carpathians);
horonyms - large spaces, countries, regions (Japan, Siberia).

3. Zoonyms - animal names (Murka, Sharik, Kesha).

4. Documentonyms - acts, laws (Archimedes' law, Peace Pact).

5. Other names:

television and radio programs (“ blue bird", "Time");
vehicles (“Titanic”, “Volga”);
periodicals (Cosmopolitan magazine, Times newspaper);
literary works(“War and Peace”, “Dowry”);
names of holidays (Easter, Christmas);
trademarks(“Pepsi”, “McDonald’s”);
organizations, enterprises, groups (Abba group, Bolshoi Theater);
natural disasters (Hurricane Jose).

Relationship between common nouns and proper nouns

When talking about a proper name, one cannot fail to mention the common noun. They are distinguished by object nominations.

Thus, a common noun, or appellative, names objects, persons or phenomena that have one or more common features and represent a separate category.

cat, river, country - a common noun;
cat Murka, Ob River, country Colombia - proper name.

The differences between proper names and common nouns are also of great interest in scientific circles. This issue was studied by such linguists as N.V. Podolskaya, A.V. Superanskaya, L.V. Shcherba, A.A. Ufimtseva, A.A. Reformatsky and many others. Researchers examine these phenomena from different angles, sometimes arriving at contradictory results. Despite this, specific features of onyms are identified:

Onims name objects within a class, while common nouns name the class itself.
A proper name is assigned to an individual object, and not to the set to which it belongs, despite common features, characteristic of this set.
The object of the nomination is always specifically defined.
Although both proper names and common nouns are connected by the framework of the nominative function, the former only name objects, while the latter also highlight the concept of them.
Onims are derived from appellatives.

Sometimes proper names can be converted into common nouns. The process of converting an onym into a common noun is called appellation, and reverse action- onymization.

Thanks to this, words are filled with new shades of meaning and expand the boundaries of their meaning. For example, given name the creator of the pistol, S. Colt, has become a household name and often in speech “Colt” is used to nominate this type firearms.

As an example of appeal, one can cite the transition of the common noun “earth” in the meaning of “soil”, “land”, into the onym “Earth” - “planet”. Thus, using a common noun as the name of something, it can become an onym (revolution - Revolution Square).

In addition, the names of literary heroes often become household names. Thus, in honor of the hero of the work of the same name by I. A. Goncharov, Oblomov, the term “Oblomovism” arose, which denotes inactive behavior.

Translation Features

Particularly difficult is the translation of proper names, both into Russian and from Russian into foreign languages.

It is impossible to translate onyms based on semantic meaning . It is carried out using:

transcriptions (recording the translated Cyrillic alphabet while retaining the original sound series);
transliteration (correlating letters of the Russian language with foreign ones using a special table);
transpositions (when onyms differing in form have the same origin, for example, the name Mikhail in Russian, and Mikhailo in Ukrainian).

Transliteration is considered the least used method of translating onyms. They resort to it in the case of processing international documents and foreign passports.

Incorrect translation can lead to misinformation and misinterpretation of the meaning of what was said or written. When translating, you should adhere to several principles:

Use reference materials(encyclopedias, atlases, reference books) to clarify words;
Try to make a translation based on the most accurate possible pronunciation or meaning of the name;
Use the rules of transliteration and transcription to translate onyms from the source language.

To summarize, we can say that onyms are distinguished by their richness and diversity. The originality of types and an extensive system of functions characterize them, and therefore onomastics, as the most important branch of linguistic knowledge. Proper names enrich, fill, develop the Russian language, and support interest in learning it.