The Noun In English And Romanian

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

INTRODUCTION

This paper is aimed at people whom are interested in studying the English noun categories of gender and number antithetical to those in Romanian. It will be taken into account both similarities and differences.

English is different from Romanian due to the fact that it is a derivative form of the early German language fused with the Old English and some Latin influences. Romanian is the result of the unification of "Daca" and Latin. After this, the Romanian language has been influenced by many other languages such as: German, Greek, Hungarian, Turkish, etc.

Nouns are an important part of speech in any language. Along with the verb, they are essential for proper communication among people. Without them one cannot excogitate ideas to communicate with others. Within this context, it is worth saying that in most languages, 50% of all speech acts use nouns.

The English language is the most widely spread language in the world. It has grown to be the third most used language in the world considering the number of native speakers, after Spanish, Mandarin and Chinese. On the other hand, Romanian (or Daco-Romanian) is a Romance language spoken by about 28 million people. It is the official language in Romania, Republic of Moldova, and the autonomous Mount Athos in Greece and in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia. It resembles Italian, and then in decreasing order, it resembles the Sardinian, Catalan, Romansh, Spanish and Portuguese, and the least with French.

Romanian is considered to be the only Romance language which contains enclitic definite articles; they are attached at the end of the noun just like in Scandinavian, Bulgarian and Macedonian, as opposed to proclitic (placed in front). They were formed from the Latin demonstrative pronouns like other Romance languages.

CHAPTER 1. THE NOUN IN ENGLISH AND ROMANIAN

The noun is one of the most important parts of speech, along with the verb; without nouns one cannot excogitate ideas into sentences to communicate with other people. Within this context, it is worth saying that in most languages, 50% of all speech acts use nouns. This is the case for both English and Romanian.

Lexical and grammatical meanings of words are interrelated within the morphological and syntactical structure system of the language. In "Cours de Linguistique Generale", Ferdinand de Saussure pointed out the fact that language itself is only a set of tools, which are counterfeited constantly for future use. Manufactured during speech acts, language changes, it is altered, extended or reshaped. Saussure uses the antithesis langue vs. parole to emphasize the fact that langue, which is French for language, depicts a system of signs, an impersonal language phenomena. On the other hand, parole, French for speech, refers to the personal phenomena of a person’s series of speech acts.

The English language is the most widely spread language in the world. Formally a West Germanic dialect, English is spoken as first language by most of the inhabitants of different nations, including United States, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland and New Zealand. Now it has grown to be the third most used language in the world considering the number of native speakers, after Spanish, Mandarin and Chinese. Commonly used as a second language more than any other, English is the most important official language used in the European Union as well as in other countries and world organizations.

On the other hand, Romanian (or Daco-Romanian) is a Romance language spoken by about 28 million people. It is the official language in Romania, Republic of Moldova, and the autonomous Mount Athos in Greece and in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia. Romanian is a neo-Latin idiom that resembles Italian, and then in decreasing order, it resembles the Sardinian, Catalan, Romansh, Spanish and Portuguese, and the least with French.

Romanian language was also formed by merging the mother tongue with Latin and other languages. The resulting language altered through time. New words were introduced in the language as the result of adopting words from English, German, Spanish and Italian.

1.1 Historical Overview of English and Romanian

The English language was spoken in the English Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and what is now the south-east region of Scotland. Back then this region was taken in tow by the kingdom of Northumbria. Under the influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, and of the United States of America since the middle 20th century, it has spread all around the globe, becoming the "lingua franca" in many regions and also the leading language of international discourse.

From a historical point of view, the English language has its origins in the mixture of related dialects, now entitled Old English, brought to the eastern coast of Britain by the Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) nomads during the 5th century. The word "English" comes from the name of the "Angles", precisely the name of their beloved ancestral region of "Angeln". While many languages contributed extensively to present-day English, the basic words are derived chiefly from the speech of the Anglo-Saxons. An interesting study has shown that of the one thousand words that recur most frequently in speaking and writing in English, 61.7 per cent come from Old English, 30.9 per cent come from French, 2.9 per cent come from Latin, and the small residue comes from various North Germanic languages.

It is not only in vocabulary that this kinship with Old English is shown, but also in the very structure of sentences. Studying the elaborate declension of nouns and conjugation of verbs in Latin, one can realize how much simpler English word forms are. There are a few changes within a word itself to express case, number, and tense, but show most relationships by little words such as to, for, of, have, had, will, and many others

A massive number of English words were also constructed based on Latin roots, due to the fact that Latin was the only form of "lingua franca" of the Church and of the European intellectual life. Afterwards, the language suffered many more influences, due to the Viking invasions from the 8th and 9th centuries.

When the Normans conquered England, in the 11th century, this gave rise to heavy changes in the vocabulary and spelling of the main language. England became a land of three languages, and it took several centuries for these to merge into the English language. The conquered English spoke Old English, the Norman overlords spoke French, churchmen used Latin. Chaos pervaded for many years because there was no common national language.

People of all classes had to communicate with one another for the proper functioning of the community they lived in. So they developed a type of common language, which was understood by everybody. The basis of this new language was Old English, enriched by French and Latin words.

Gradually it gained standing and quickly turned from a hybrid language into a common tongue. In 1362, three centuries after the conquest, parliament was for the first time opened by a speech in English instead of French.

There were some specific elements borrowed from Norman-French. These conventions began to resemble in appearance, a close relationship between the Romance languages towards what had then become Middle English. Due to the assimilation of words from other languages, modern English has gained a large vocabulary. Modern English assimilated terms from other European languages, but also words from Africa or of Hindi origin. The Oxford English Dictionary gives a list containing over 250,000 distinct words, disregarding many technical, scientific, or slang terms.

Romanian is an Indo-European language, part of the Romance languages. Also called Daco-Romanian, it is spoken by 28 million people all around the world; 24 million of them are using it as their native language. It is the official language of Romania where it is spoken by around 17 million speakers, 90% of the country’s total population.

The Epistemic Greco-Roman grammatical type is a more generalized method of exposure that linguists of European languages used for centuries in teaching grammar in many countries, requiring treatment with categories like noun, number and case. Habitual patterns of thinking in the old methodology are rooted in a tradition of two thousand years of grammar. Frequent utterances are assertors of morphological type. Reflection is rarely received as an apodictic expression or issue, with stratification of the trial judge when it came to organizing optimal conceptual system of Roman grammar.

The Italian language resembles the Romanian language in their close number of morphological features, some almost identical consonants, and a number of words and phrases. To Spanish it is closer, as it does not distinguish between speaking Romanian closed and open vowels.

In Romanian, nouns are characterized by gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), declined by number (singular and plural) and are case sensitive (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive and vocative). The articles, adjectives and pronouns agree in gender, number and case with the noun they reference.

Romanian is considered to be the only Romance language which contains enclictic definite articles; they are attached at the end of the noun just like in Scandinavian, Bulgarian and Macedonian, as opposed to proclitic (placed in front). They were formed from the Latin demonstrative pronouns like other Romance languages.

1.2 Noun Definitions

One of the most common definitions of a noun is that it is a word used for naming a person, an animal, a place, a thing, or an abstract idea. In both English and Romanian, "the noun" itself represents the same things, however the differences between English and Romanian nouns are found in case of number and gender. The most common definition of the noun is the one that defines the noun as "a word that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality" (Cambridge Dictionary).

Comprehensive reference dictionaries define English nouns as follows:

"Noun [countable]

a word or group of words that represent a person (such as 'Michael', 'teacher' or 'police officer'), a place (such as 'France' or 'school'), a thing or activity (such as 'coffee' or 'football'), or a quality or idea (such as 'danger' or 'happiness'). Nouns can be used as the subject or object of a verb (as in 'The teacher arrived' or 'We like the teacher') or as the object of a preposition (as in 'good at football')."(Longman Dictionary)

The Oxford Dictionary offers the reader a more complex outlook with the noun considered as per origin and grammatical references:

"Noun: a word (other than a pronoun) used to identify any of a class of people, places, or things (common noun), or to name a particular one of these (proper noun).

Origin: late Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French, from Latin nomen 'name'

Grammar: Nouns are words used to identify people, places, things, and ideas. As a grammatical class, nouns satisfy most or all of the following tests: Number: they have a singular and a plural form: one car, two cars one child, several children Determiners: they can be preceded by a, an, or the: a child an apple the cars Modifiers: they can be modified by an adjective placed before them: a young child a ripe apple the new cars Phrases: they can form the headword of a noun phrase: a ripe red apple ready to eat the new cars on the forecourt Nouns fall into a number of broad groups, each of which has a separate entry in this A–Z" (Oxford Dictionary)

Some English grammars give vague definitions of what a noun is. Leon Levițchi (13) defines the noun as a word which denotes names of objects, such as beings, things and abstract notions; however, he states that it depends on the reader’s understanding as to how to recognize nouns.

English linguist Geoffrey Leech considers nouns to be "the largest class of words" (Leech 39) whereas for Adriana Chiriacescu, the English noun is a "term used in the grammatical classification of words" (Chiriacescu 5). David Crystal, in his "Rediscover Grammar with David Crystal" emphasizes that grammar identifies nouns in a different way, if a word can be determined by a, an, or some, then that word is certainly a noun. Similarly the word that stands as the head of a noun phrase is also a noun.

"The traditional definition of a noun says that it is the name of a person, place, or thing. But this definition is extremely vague, and it does not tell the whole story. The vagueness is in the word 'thing'. Advice, beauty, and consequence are nouns, but it is difficult to see what 'things' these words refer to. The definition makes no reference at all to the way nouns actually behave in the grammar of the language" (Crystal 15)

On the other hand, in Romanian, Constantin Dumitru (34) defines the noun as a notional and flexible part of speech, referring to objects which can perform all syntactic functions within the sentence and which can also stand for a whole sentence. The same idea can be found in the definition listed in the Romanian Explicative Dictionary:

"SUBSTANTÍV, (1) substantive, s. n., (2) substantivi, adj. 1. S. n. Parte de vorbire care denumește lucruri, ființe sau noțiuni abstracte și care se modifică, în cele mai multe limbi, după număr și caz. 2. Adj. (În sintagma) Colorant substantiv = colorant care vopsește fibrele fără ajutorul mordanților; colorant direct. – Din fr. substantif, lat. substantivus." (D.E.X. )

In Gramatica Academiei Române, the noun is defined as the part of a lexical and grammatical class, representing almost 50% of all Romanian words.

Alongside the verb, the noun is a fundamental part of speech involved in the definition of other words. As an important part of speech, it is important that the noun is correctly defined before it is analyzed closely. From a morphological point of view, a noun changes according to its gender, number and determiners. From a syntactic approach, when combined with a verb a noun forms the nucleus of a statement, the main idea. In both languages nouns have the same functions within a sentence.

1.3 Formation and Classification of Nouns

In both English and Romanian the function of a noun can be as: subject, subject complement, direct and indirect object, object complement, appositive, adjective or adverb.

In English, a noun is formed by adding suffixes to other categories of words. For example if the ending -age is added to the verb to waste the resulting noun is wastage. Suffixes can also be added to other verbs, adjectives or other nouns. Below, some more examples illustrate this idea:

Suffix

Add to...

Example

-ation

The verb "to explore"

exploration

-ant

The verb "to contest"

contestant

-ar

The verb "to lie"

liar

-age

The verb "to drain"

drainage

-ance

The verb "to perform"

performance

-dom

The noun "king"

kingdom

-ee

The verb "to employ"

employee

-eer

The verb "to profit"

profiteer

-er

The verb "to write"

writer

-ess

The noun "actor"

actress

-ing

The verb "to build"

building

-ity

The adjective "rapid"

rapidity

-(i)an

The noun "Paris"

Parisian

-ist

The adjective "social"

socialist

-ism

The noun "ideal"

idealism

-ness

The adjective "kind"

kindness

-or

The verb "to act"

actor

-ship

The noun "friend"

friendship

Some words are modified during the process of adding suffixes; words like explore drop the final e and then add -ation; the verb to write drops the final -e and the adds -er.

There are many noun classifications in English. Bloomsbury's Grammar (2) lists eight types of nouns: proper (New York, Detroit, Columbia), common (tissue, glasses, bed), abstract (truth, reliance, sensibility), concrete (chocolate, pizza, heater), singular (child, cat, tree), and plural (trees, cats, children), countable (a car, a banana, an arm), and uncountable (sugar, information, homework).

According to Thomson and Martinet (24) "there are four kinds of noun in English": Common (book, computer, notebook), proper (Mary, Constantine, Stuart), abstract (beauty, sensibility) and collective (crowd, people, children). Collective or mass nouns are included in the category of number. On the other hand Leon Levitchi and Ioan Preda (16) state the fact that there are only two types of nouns: common (map, street or sugar), and proper (Robert, the Danube).

Other linguists, such as Zdrenghea (15), consider noun classification as being a more complex process and state that the following points of view must be taken into account when distributing into a group:

According to their form, nouns can be: simple (formed by one word: dog, book, shelf) and compound (formed by combining two words together: hotdog, bookshelf, bathroom)

According to their meaning, nouns are: common, proper, and collective and, sometimes, names of materials. Nouns like car, house, toy, are all called common nous because there are many cars, houses, and toys all around the world. Nouns like Bucharest or Romania are called proper nouns because there is only one particular country called Romania and only one state called Bucharest. Therefore, common nouns define things in general; they describe a class of entities which exist in a larger amount, whereas proper nouns refer to particular things, unique entities, or individuals. Any noun which can experience at least one of the five senses is a concrete noun. Collective nouns refer to a group or a collection of similar things or people which are taken as a whole, noun such as: crew, family or audience. All nouns referring to "bulk or mass or quantity of matter or an aggregation of things united in a body" (Mihai M. Zdrenghea 15) are called mass nouns or names of materials. "The plural form of a mass noun may have a meaning entirely different from the singular, and yet represents a mass idea" (Mihai M. Zdrenghea 15). Such as an example is the noun news, which is a mass noun, built to expresses a plural idea:

e.g. The herald presented the news five minutes earlier.

Nouns can also be classified as abstract and concrete. A noun is called abstract when it refers to ideas or concepts, (beauty, philology).

e.g. Her beauty was dazzling.

Abstract nouns do not have any connection to the human senses; any noun that has no reference towards the five human senses is considered an abstract noun. On the other hand, there are concrete nouns, which state things one can feel or touch (pen, table computer).

e.g. She gave me a new pen for my birthday.

Other classifications (Crystal 93) group the main classes of a noun into six categories: firstly nouns are separated into common (book, boulevard, and city; e.g. The book is on the self.) and proper (New York, Mary, and Sibiu; e.g. Mary visited Sibiu last month.). Then, Crystal divides the common category into countable nouns (chair, table, and car; e.g. The chair was under the table.) and uncountable nouns (information, homework, sugar; e.g. The information we received was very useful.). Both categories can further be divided into concrete (referring to things which can be measured and observed such as chair, pen, and bottle) and abstract nouns (which regard the "unobservable notions" (Crystal 96) such as courage, music, and love).

Nouns

Proper Common

Countable Uncountable

Concrete Abstract Concrete Abstract

Romanian grammars typically list only four categories of nouns: common, proper, abstract and concrete nouns.

Common nouns are considered to be simple words, that do not point an exact person, object or place, they express things that can further be classified such as: băiat/boy; fată/girl; geam/window; masă/table; etc.

e.g. Băiatul se joacă în gradina din spatele casei. / The boy is playing in the backyard.

The proper nouns stand for specific people and places. In Romanian, proper nouns can be easily identified as they are always written with capital letters: Jack; Mary; England; Romania; etc.

e.g. Turiștii preferă să viziteze liniștitul Sibiu în locul aglomeratului București. / Tourists prefer to visit the quiet Sibiu, rather than the noisy Bucharest.

For people and places there are different categories of nouns. However there is one category that refers to things and objects: concrete nouns: telefon/telephone; cizmă/boot; lampă/lamp; etc.

e.g. Telefonul a sunat chiar când intram în apartament. / The telephone rang right when I was entering my apartment.

Abstract nouns refer to moods or ways such as: noroc/luck; fericire/happiness; atitudine/attitude; etc.

e.g. Acest medallion trebuie să îți aducă noroc. / This necklace should bring you luck.

In Toșa’s view, the Romanian grammar has established a particular ontological criterion of dividing and defining nouns; namely, common nouns name objects (ceas/watch; ușă/door; televizor/television; etc.), whereas proper nouns refer only to some items considered in isolation (Oxford; Samsung; Quartz; etc.).

With such classification, common and proper are not contradictory terms but adverse. However, a clear definition regarding common and proper nouns, according to Viggo Brøndal (Toșa Alexandru 35), can only be made upon the number of defined objects. A proper noun defines a single object, a unique element or an individual entity. As opposed to the proper noun, the common noun denotes more objects or a mass of elements. Brøndal considers such distinction to be insufficient, pointing to the fact that proper nouns such as names John, Petru, Mary, Constantine, Alexandra, are all names that were given to more than one person for thousands of years.

e.g. Alexandru a venit să o viziteze pe Maria, dar Ion i-a spus că ea se va întoarce la ora 8. / Alexander came to visit Mary, but John told him that she will come back at 8 o’clock.

In the Romanian Academy Grammar the noun is classified as abstract, massive, collective and proper. Abstract nouns, are considered a subchapter of nouns, which are in opposition with concrete nouns. There is no clear distinction between abstract and concrete nouns, as seen with the noun politică in the following sentences:

e.g. Ceea ce se intamplă acum în țară nu se poate numi politică./What is now happening in our country cannot be called politics.

Politica monetară a anului trecut, a fost subiect de discuție săptămâna aceasta. / Last year’s monetary policy was the topic of this week’s discussion.

In the former sentence, politica stands for politics in general, whereas in the latter it stands for policy.

An essential factor which can lead to the correct usage of both English and Romanian languages is to categorize nouns correctly. It is difficult to come to terms, due to the fact that there are many different opinions regarding the scheme for ordering nouns. Many linguists pointed out opposite ideas regarding the classification of nouns. It is almost impossible to recognize which opinion is the best or which is the correct version. That is why there are so many grammar books. It depends on the human factor which transposition is to be used.

CHAPTER 2. GENDER IN ENGLISH AND ROMANIAN; A BRIEF CONTRASTIVE APPROACH

The word gender comes from the Latin word genus which originally related to race or kind. In the Indo-European languages, gender has not always referred to gender distinctions. There were languages where only two categories existed, where a noun had to fit in one of them, no matter of its meaning.

The grammatical gender is present in almost a fourth of the languages in the world and it is considered to be a system which goes far towards the classification of nouns. The most common divisions of gender include the following: masculine, feminine, neuter, animate and inanimate. The gender allocation is determined by the meaning of the words, but in many languages the semantics of a word or phrase is in some degree not entirely correct. For example the word ‘manliness’ could be considered feminine, but, regarding the fact that it refers to a man, it can also be a masculine word. That is why the morphology and phonology of a word play such an important role in the assignation of a word to the correct gender. This is the case of both English and Romanian, the only difference being that in Romanian there are only three gender markers: masculine, feminine and neuter.

The grammatical gender can also be recognized from the words surrounding the noun such as adjectives, pronouns or determiners. These words do not take the place of the noun, they go far towards the meaning of it and enhance the message that is intended or expressed.

However, in modern English, some nouns denote no gender distinction, such as chair, child, glass, table, car, pen, roof, and flower. These nouns are classified accordingly and, usually, are represented by objects or things.

e.g. The chair is under the table.

The child is old enough to go to kindergarden.

This does not occur in Romanian. Any noun which is not classified as masculine or feminine is considered to be neuter. The way a noun's gender can be recognized is either by replacing the noun with one of the pronouns he/she/it, or by deciding whether that noun refers to a masculine, feminine, or neuter object. If a noun can be replaced with he or she, that noun corresponds to the gender indicated by that pronoun. For instance, the noun boy can be replaced with the pronoun he, which indicates the masculine gender, therefore boy is a masculine noun. The noun girl, which clearly indicates the affiliation towards the feminine gender, can be replaced with the pronoun she. Other nouns, like table or window refer to objects and can be replaced only by the pronoun it.

e.g. Yesterday my daughter met a boy at school.

When referring to jobs, public services, hobbies or interests, there are many gender sensitive nouns in English: for example, a man is called an author, while a woman is called an authoress; the noun actor has as feminine form the word actress, or waiter and waitress. By adding the suffix -ess to the masculine form of the noun, the feminine form can be derived. This action is similar in Romanian: for example, a woman is called scriitoare/writer, and a man is called scriitor/writer; a man is called actor/actor and the woman actrita/actress. Romanian language has no exact rule when turning from masculine to feminine. Some words that are masculine and end in ‘-r’ form the feminine by adding ‘-e’ and others, that also end in ‘-r’, change the entire structure of the word to turn into feminine.

The use of gender specific nouns has become very rare nowadays and only nouns that refer to occupational categories are occasionally used with gender markers.

Each category of gender has some specific features. For the masculine nouns, we have the pronouns he /they. They replace nouns such as: men, boys and male animals (Thomson & Martinet 24). Similarly, she/they can replace nouns which stand for female representatives. Inanimate things, animals or babies, whose sex is not known, are replaced by the pronoun it/they and are considered neuter. All nouns whose sex is uncertain are neuter, except for collective nouns. However, grammatical gender is not the same with the natural sex of someone or something (Crystal 106), that is, "boys" are not necessarily masculine and "girls" are not feminine.

2.1 Forms and Definitions; Gender Markers

The noun in English is classified into the category of gender according to the following four categories: masculine, feminine, neuter and common/dual.

The gender of a noun is determined by its meaning, and only in some cases, by its form. Accordingly, nouns are classified into:

Nouns which form their feminine form by adding a suffix to the masculine form of a noun. For example actor-masculine; actress-feminine. In forming this feminine noun, the suffix -ess is at added the end of the masculine form of the noun. Other examples: heir/heiress; waiter/waitress; host/hostess. The Romanian language calls this process "moțiune". The nouns which result from this method are entitled mobile nouns.

Nouns which form their masculine or feminine form by joining two words together: by annexing the word sales to the word man/woman it becomes either a masculine noun, or a feminine noun: salesman and saleswoman

Nouns that are the opposite form of each other: Boy/Girl; Man/Woman; Father/Mother; Husband/Wife; Gentleman/Lady; Son/Daughter; Brother/Sister; Sir/Madam; Uncle/Aunty; Nephew/Niece; Lord/Lady; King/Queen; Earl/Countess; Bachelor/Maid/Spinster; Monk/Nun; Wizard/Witch; Master/Mistress; Drake/Duck; Drone/Bee; Gander/Goose; Lion/Lioness; Bull/Cow; Rooster/Hen;. In Romanian these nouns are called "heteronimice", nouns with different forms for each of the beings of the opposite sex.

However, the Romanian language distinguishes only three types of noun gender: masculine (perete/wall; băiat/boy; copil/child), feminine (minge/ball, perdea/curtain; fată/girl), and neuter, which includes the English category of gender "common/dual" (război/war; codru/woods; pahar/glass). The division between masculine and feminine is different than the one used in English. By replacing the noun with one of the pronouns he/she/it one can decide whether that word belongs to the masculine, feminine or neuter gender. However, in Romanian, even things or objects can be masculine or feminine; they do not necessarily have to be neuter. For example, the Romanian perete/wall is considered to be masculine and the word masă/table is feminine. This assessment is not possible in English. Only if it refers to a metaphorical term it is possible for the speaker to refer to the wall as him and to the table as she.

In Romanian, gender distinction markers are: the masculine and the neuter singular form ending in consonant, -u, -e, -ă, whereas the feminine singular nouns generally end in -ă, -e or -ţiune (-ţie) , -siune/-ziune, -are/-ere/-ire. Here are some more examples of Romanian nouns divided according to their gender:

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

iubit - boyfriend

copil - child

om  - human

profesor - teacher

tată - father

litru  - liter

unchiu - uncle

frate- brother

Iubită - girlfriend

copilă - child

femeie- woman

floare - flower

naţiune- nation

producţie- production

televiziune - television

negoţ - bargain

steag - flag

cânt - song

caiet - notebook

sens - meaning

ou- egg

orgoliu- pride 

nume - name

Masculine gender refers to male nouns, personal or non-personal, for example: man, boy, father, brother. The masculine form of a noun is considered to be the pure form of a word.

A noun is said to be in the masculine gender if it refers to a male character or member of a species: Man, lion, hero, boy, king, horse and actor etc.

e.g. A boy is playing in the play-ground.

The hero of the movie is not a native of this country.

There is no use of grammatical gender in English, but there are "ways of distinguishing animate beings from inanimate entities" (Crystal 106). He divides the gender into: Inanimate (which refer to words which can be replaced with the pronoun it) and animate nouns (which make use of the pronouns he and she). Animate nouns are divided into personal animate (referring to male and female patterns boy-girl, man-woman) and nonpersonal animate nouns (which relate to animals dog, cat, mouse, horse).

A noun is said to belong to the feminine gender if it refers to a female member of a species, such as: woman, lioness, heroine, girl, mare, niece, empress, cow, actress, etc. The feminine gender is formed by adding the suffix –ess to the masculine form of the noun, as in the following examples: e.g. The lion and the lioness were lying in the sun.

The count with his countess announced their son’s wedding.

A different way of forming feminine nouns is by adding either a suffix or a prefix to a compound noun:

e.g. The man-servant brought the food, while the maid-servant was serving us with tea.

My grandmother bought a he-goat and a she-goat.

The bull-calf is no match for a furious cow-calf.

Feminine nouns can also be formed by adding other sufixes such as:

-a: don/donna; czar/czarina.

e.g. Donna Maria arrived today from Milano for tonight's fashion show.

The Czarina was considered to be the most beautiful woman in the whole country.

-e/-enne: fiancé/fiancée; protégé/protégée; confidant/confidante; comedian/comedienne;

e.g. His fiancée left him standing at the altar because she did not love him anymore.

Her job as a comedienne is not as rewarding as she would have wanted it to be.

-ine: hero/heroine; landgrave/landgravine; Joseph/Josephine;

e.g. Josephine is my mother's middle name.

A noun is said to be in the neuter gender if it refers to a member of a species which is neither male nor female. Typically nouns, referring to lifeless objects are in neuter nouns: chair, table, tree, star, mountain, street, book, car, school, paper, pencil, computer, etc.

e.g. Computer has brought about drastic changes in our lives.

Trees are cleansing the air.

In English, there is one controversial category, namely the common gender. Some grammarians do not attest its existence; others ignore it and/or include it in the neuter category. In Romanian, the common gender is included in the neuter category. It does not exist on its own.

The neuter gender takes into account all nouns which can be replaced by the pronoun it, which name things such as furniture, black-board or room;

e.g. The new furniture you bought is too shinny for my taste.

The students have to clean the black-board during break time.

Generally, neuter nouns are nouns which are neither masculine, nor feminine. Worth mentioning here is the fact that nouns like baby and child are also considered neuter, but only when the speaker does not know the baby’s sex or if he/she is not attached to the baby.

e.g. My sister is having a baby next month. It will be baptized within three months.

The dog’s bark scared the poor child; it was afterwards taken to the hospital.

A noun is considered to have the common gender in one of the following cases:

The nouns which refer either to masculine or feminine, depending the word’s meaning in the sentence/context. For example, the word teacher, taken out of the context, is neuter because there is no reference towards the gender. However in the examples below the noun teacher is a female teacher that is why the noun belongs to the feminine gender. This context-specific distinction is not to be found in Romanian. In the case of teacher the translation is profesor/profesoară. It depends on the speaker/writer how he uses it. Recently, it has been considered that nouns, such as profesor, doctor or director should only be used with their masculine form, no matter if the referent is a woman or a man.

e.g. My son’s teacher was sick the other day, she asked us to keep all children at home.

Doctorul mi-a dat niște medicamente pentru spate. /The doctor gave me some medicine for my back pain.

Profesorul nostru este tot timpul punctual la ora. /Our professor is always on time for class.

Directorul școlii este cel care se ocupă de toate. /The school director is the one managing everything.

Collective nouns are considered to be in the common category of gender. Nouns that refer to both men and women simultaneously, but which have a singular form referring to more than one person, like people or crew, are considered to be common. They do not refer to a specific gender category, which is why they cannot be gender specific.

Child, student, friend, applicant, candidate, servant, member, parliamentarian and leader are few of the common-gender nouns.

e.g. A child is playing in the play-ground.

A Parliamentarian should have a good command of his native tongue.

A student must learn a lot to pass his exams.

2.2. Some Grammatical Aspects Concerning Gender in English

Nouns expressing emotions can be classified into either masculine or feminine. There are some aspects which are taken into account to distinguish these two categories: for example, the noun anger is considered to be a masculine noun because it refers to a negative emotion, while calm is regarded as a feminine noun due to the fact that it states a positive state.

2.2.1. Masculine Gender and Negative Features

The masculine gender is usually ascribed to nouns denoting strength, harshness, cruelty, most of them negative features: anger, fury, terror, crime, fear.

Regarding that it is more likely for a man to have these emotions than a woman, the negative nouns have been classified as masculine nouns. Ever since the Vikings, men were considered to be angry, fearless and terrifying due to the important role they played in a family. This is why, through history, men have always been associated with negative emotions

e.g. Being angry does not help you solve your problems.

It may be possible that this fury you are experiencing can be the cause of this confusion.

Women can also experience these emotions, but as the "weak link" of the human race, women cannot experience these emotions forever, they cannot be characterized according to these flutters.

In Romanian if a noun ends in -giu, it is categorized as masculine

e.g. De când era copil şi-a dorit să devină macaragiu. /

Ever since he was a boy he wanted to become the man who handels the elevator.

In Romanian if a noun ends in -ă, -a, -ea, -i, -e, -ătate, -toare, that noun is feminine. Exception makes the words tată/father, Papă/Pope, Vodă, which are considered to be masculine nouns, despite their ending.

e.g. Tatăl fetei a murit acum zece ani. /The girl's father died ten years ago.

Mancarea a fost delicioasă, mamă! /The food was delicious mom!

If a noun representing a being ends in a consonant, -i, or -u, preceded by another consonant, that noun is masculine.

e.g. Un meci pierdut nu înseamnă nimic pentru ehipa campionilor. /A lost game does not mean anything to the champions.

Comportamentul lui arată că este un elev mediocru. /His behavior shows that he is a mediocre pupil.

If a noun ends in -e and it represents a being, that noun is masculine or feminine.

e.g. Un iepure tocmai ce a sarit din tufiÅŸ. /A rabbit just jumped out of that bush.

O potîrniche le-a dat bătăi de cap muncitorilor de pe şantier. /A partridge gave the workers a hard time.

2.2.2. Positive Features and Feminine Nouns

On the other hand, nouns denoting delicacy, feebleness, tenderness and other positive features, are feminine: friendship, spring, time, truth, soul.

If a noun ends in -e but makes reference to an object, then that noun is feminine: mere, agrafe, etc.

e.g. Ne ajung doua mere. /Two apples will do.

Încă trei agrafe şi părul miresei este gata aranjat. /Three more clips and the bride's hair is ready.

The distinction depends on the imagination and interpretation of the author.

e.g. Friendship between these two children has grown stronger over past the years.

2.2.3. Exceptions and Neuter Nouns

Exception makes the noun jealousy: even if it refers to insecurity, fear and anxiety (which are all qualities referring to the masculine gender), it is considered to be feminine, because women are more likely to acquire these feelings rather than men.

e.g. A sharp pang of jealousy went through her heart.

In Romanian a noun can be classified as neuter if it ends in -aj (except for paj), -ment or -mînt: decupaj/cutting, scurt-metraj/short film, ciment/cement, randament/efficiency, mormînt/tomb, îngrăşămînt/fertilizer.

e.g. Rochia aceea are un decupaj frumos la baza gulerului. /That dress has a beautiful cutting at the bottom of the collar.

Un scurt-metraj poate fi mai expresiv decât un film de două ore. /A short film can be more expressive than a two hour long movie.

CHAPTER 3. THA CATEGORY OF NUMBER

The category of number represents the grammatical distinction corresponding to the difference between the form of one or more than one nouns (unity and plurality). The term was coined during from the Old French nombre (noun), nombrer (verb), from Latin numerous.

When a noun denotes a single object, it is of the singular number: man, lamp, or window:

e.g. The man I saw was a dark haired man.

I requested a lamp for my office.

The window was open when I came in.

When a noun denotes more than one object, it is of the plural number: men, lamps, or windows:

e.g. More and more men go to work in this factory every day.

I received two lamps to decorate my room with.

In summer I use to sleep with all my windows open.

Number is the grammatical category denoting the reference which is made "to one or more representatives of a class of notions" (Chiriacescu 39) and the form of a noun which points out that a noun can express one or more things (Zdrenghea 24). The category of number refers not to the form of a noun, but to its morphological and grammatical meaning (Toșa 160).

In Romanian, the category of number stands for both singular and plural forms of a noun and expresses the singular and plural to all things. The term "thing" here, is not to be taken as it is; it refers to all existing data of the reality reflected in the semantic series of the noun. The morphological sense of number comes across other parts of speech, such as: pronouns, verbs, adjectives or articles.

3.1. Spelling Rules

When a noun refers to one person or one thing, that noun uses its singular form:

e.g. A man is walking by the park.

A group of geese is called gaggle.

Our live should be filled with joy.

Church is the worshipping-place of Christians.

In these sentences, the nouns man, group, joy, church and chair are in singular forms. Joy, wife, hero, baby, city, parrot, loaf or tooth are few singular-nouns which we use. The noun has various dimensions in its usages. A noun can have several meanings depending on the context.

Graphically, the formation of the plural in Romanian can be represented in the diagram below: Singular form ending:

Ending in Singular

When an -i is added

Examples

-ea-, -oa-

-e-, -o-,

moară–mill/mori–mills

-s-

-ÅŸ-

compus–compound/compuși - compounds

-st-

-ÅŸt-

artist–artist/artiști- artists

-t , -d

-Å£ , -z

tată-father-tați-fathers

Ending in Singular

When -e is added

Examples

-a-

-e-

masă-table/mese-tables

-î-

-i-

mormînt–tomb/morminte-tombs

-o- , -e-

-oa-, -ea-

Raport–report/rapoarte-reports

The Regular Plural of Nouns is formed from the Singular. In the oldest form of English, multiple plural endings were in use, only one remaining as active force in modern English: the ending s or es. When a new word arises, the form of its plural will follow this rule: pen/pens; cat/cats; book/books; garage/garages; dress/dresses; bush/bushes;

e.g. All my pens are gone.

My neighbor’s cats are all over my garden.

I’ve taken the books in the library.

In English there are several rules relating to the adding of –s or –es which must be observed.

3.1.1. Nouns ending in –y

Nouns which end in –y preceded by a vowel, simply add the ending –s to the singular form: day/days; holiday/holidays;

e.g. The days have come for us to realize that aliens are not our enemies.

We spent the last two holidays on an island in Greece.

If the noun ends in –y but is followed by a consonant, it is required to change the y into ie and then add the ending –s: pony/ponies; factory/factories;

e.g. The children were fascinated about the ponies.

All factories in that area were shut down last year.

There is a mention that must be made: -qu- is considered to be a consonantic group; nouns like colloquy and soliloquy form the plural colloquies and soliloquies.

e.g. The colloquies at the meeting were in favor of the crowd.

Our Romanian teacher used to keep soliloquies at all school meetings, so as to express his opinion towards administrative problems.

3.1.2. Nouns ending in –o

Nouns ending in –o receive the ending –s or –es to form the plural form. The suffix –s is added in the following cases:

When a noun whose final –o is preceded by a vowel: radio/radios; scenario/scenarios; studio/studios; portfolio/portfolios; cuckoo/cuckoos; kangaroo/kangaroos;

e.g. All radios in this shop are brand new.

The scenarios I read last week were brilliant.

There are four studios in town.

When a noun ending in –o is of foreign origin: tango/tangos; soprano/sopranos; dynamo/dynamos; canto/cantos; casino/casinos;

e.g. The tangos she danced with that professional dancer were, in her opinion, unique.

All sopranos were invited back-stage to perform the rehearsals.

More dynamos can generate more power if you know how to use them.

Abbreviations such as kilos ( from kilogram), photos (from photograph), or pianos (from pianoforte)

e.g. I bought three kilos of cherries.

The wedding photos came out great.

His grandfather owned two pianos.

Some names which end in –o add –s: Hindoo/Hindoos; Romeo/Romeos; Eskimo/Eskimos:

e.g. Hindoos have their own customs when it comes to weddings.

All guys turn into Romeos when they are in love with a girl.

Eskimos live in cold environments, and eat meals which are rich in fat.

The suffix –es is added when –o is preceded by a consonant: hero/heroes; echo/echoes; embargo/embargoes; mosquito/mosquitoes; domino/dominoes;

e.g. Echoes can be heard only in the mountains.

The embargoes were heavier than the last time.

There are nouns which end in –o and form the plural form by adding both –s and –es: buffalo – buffalos/buffaloes; calico – calicos/calicoes; cargo – cargos/cargoes; flamingo – flamingoes; magnifico – magnificoes; motto – mottoes; mulatto – mulattoes; negro – negroes; no – noes (i.e. persons voting No as opposed to Aye); potato – potatoes; tomato – tomatoes; tornado – tornadoes; volcano – volcanoes; bravo – bravos; cento – centos; octavo – octavos; quarto – quartos; solo – solos; tyro – tyros; virtuoso – virtuosos; rondo – rondos; stiletto – stilettos; nuncio – nuncios; oratorio – oratorios;

It is necessary to point out the fact that those nouns which take a plural form, due to their ending in -os, are in most cases foreign nouns, imperfectly naturalized. There are a few in the pronunciation of their plurals: solo, nuncio, mosquito, rondo, tyro, etc.

3.1.3. Nouns ending in –f or –fe

Most of the nouns ending in –f or –fe form the plural by adding –s : cliff/cliffs; roof/roofs; proof/proofs; gulf/gulfs;

e.g. It is hard to reach the cliffs of the mountains.

Last year all the roofs were blown away by the tornado.

Other nouns ending in –f or –fe drop this suffix and instead add the ending –ves: elf/elves; leaf/leaves; half/halves; knife/knives; life/lives; wife/wives; self/selves; sheaf/sheaves; thief/thieves;

e.g. Elves are imaginary creatures.

In autumn all leaves fall to the ground.

Nouns with the same ending can also form the plural by adding either –s or –ves:

beef – beefs (when it refers to kinds of beef)/beeves (when the meaning is carcasses of oxen);

dwarf – dwarfs/dwarves;

scarf – scarfs/scarves;

e.g. The beef I buy from my local store is different than the beefs

I get form the supermarket.

Dwarfs are said to be little friendly creatures.

The scarves I own are a too colorful for this special occasion.

3.1.4. Nouns ending in –th

Nouns which end in –th add –s to form their plural form: birth/births; death/deaths; length/lengths; mot/moths; month/months; mouth/mouths; path/paths;

e.g. All births are written down for evidence.

The deaths are announced to the morgue and they tell you what to do next.

When she was younger, she used to go to great lengths.

There are also nouns which add –es to the ending –th: broth/brothes; cloth/clothes;

e.g. The brothes at the restaurant did not satisfy his hunger.

3.1.5. Singularia tantum

Words like advice, homework, sugar, luck, knowledge, information, weather, milk, bread, butter, cotton, luggage, peace, etc. do not have plural forms because the article a/an cannot be put before them. This happens because some of them already have a collective meaning. In this case, the singular form of these nouns if formed by adding words like piece, item, loaf: a piece of advice/knowledge/luggage; an item of information; a loaf of bread:

e.g. The advice she gave me was very useful. / he nedded more than just a piece of advice.

When I got home, the bread was already dry. / I only asked for a loaf of bread.

3.1.6. Pluralia Tantum

There are a number of nouns which do not have a singular form because they express more than one thing. All those nouns can be grouped according to :

Clothing: trousers, shorts, pijamas, braces, jeans, pants, tights, etc.

e.g. His trousers were dirty because of the rain.

She bought herself some funny pyjamas.

Tools/ Instruments: scissors, binoculars, glasses, scales, etc.

e.g. I almost sat on my glasses the other night. That was how sleepy I was.

Scissors are not toys for little children. They can easily get hurt while running with them.

Sciences: phonetics, mathematics, linguistics, informatics, gymnastics, diplomatics, therapeutics, dynamics, economics, politics, statistics, etc.

e.g. My weak point is mathematics; I cannot understand that science.

Phonetics was the first exam I failed to pass in my first year of study.

Nouns ending in -ing: savings, doings, surroundings, winnings, etc.

Habits: manners, customs, remains, sands, spirits, auspices, etc.

e.g. Customs are that the groom has to kiss the bride after the ceremony.

His remains will be burnt and the ashes will be thrown into the sea as he wished.

3.1.8. Foreign Nouns

English language contains a number of words taken from other languages. Because some of them were used less than others, their form has remained unchanged. Some plural nouns receive one suffix; others receive the ending from the mother-language. Some of those nouns are represented in the diagram below:

Singular

Plural

formula

larva

nebula

focus

genius

magus

radius

terminus

tumulus

addendum

animalculum

datum

desideratum

dictum

effluvium

erratum

memorandum

stratum strata

automaton

phenomenon

genus

axis

ellipsis

metamorphosis

parenthesis

index

vertex