Contrastive Analysis

Lecture 1
Nouns in Macedonian and English
1. Definition of nouns
2. Different types of nouns: single-word and compound nouns, NP
3. Functions of nouns
4. Sub-categories of nouns (proper vs. common)
5. Categories of nouns: number, gender, case and (in)definiteness
 Definition
• What are nouns?
- words that denote objects, people, animals, places, events, phenomena etc.

e.g. Petar, Bitola, books, love, bird

Form
• Nouns in both English and Macedonian can be:
• single-word nouns (e.g. Maria, President, yesterday)
• compound nouns (e.g. greenhouse, playoff, виножито, стоногалка,
земјоделец).
• Noun phrases (именски синтагми)
(e.g. the students, interesting stories, добри деца, нашиот дом)
*the head (the central element) + other elements called determiners in
English (e.g. a, the) and modifiers (e.g. interesting, добри, нашиот)
 Functions of nouns

• Nouns in English can perform various functions in sentences:

• Subject (e.g. The students are in the classroom)

• Object (e.g. I sent the letter (direct object); I asked my mother (indirect
object))
• Subject complement (subject predicative) (She is a teacher)
• Object complement (e.g. They elected him President)
• Adjunct (e.g. They visited him yesterday)
• The nouns in Macedonian perform the same functions:
подмет, именски прирок, прилошка определба,
(директен/индиректен) предмет

Exercise 1. Identify the functions of the underlined nouns in the

following sentences:
• Го отвори писмото.___________________
• Му се јавив на другарот. ___________________
• Бабата сакаше да каже нешто. ___________________
• Ние сме сложно семејство. ___________________
• Ќе дојдам околу пладне. ___________________
Sub-categories of nouns
• Nouns in English can be primarily subcategorized into: proper
and common.
• Proper nouns denote names of people, places, events, institutions,
etc. which are unique (e.g. Sonja, Veronika, Skopje, England)
• Common nouns are considered representatives of a particular class,
group or species (e.g. school, teacher, theatre, cup, wolf, tree, etc.)
• Common nouns can be further subdivided into:
• countable nouns - denote things that can be counted (e.g. cups,
chairs, books)
• uncountable nouns - refer to things or concepts that cannot be
counted (e.g. sand, water, hair, chocolate)
• Countable nouns: a/an or a number (e.g. a bag, three bags); few,
some, many and a lot of (e.g. a lot of children, few Universities), how
many (e.g. How many jackets have you got?)
• Uncountable nouns: no indefinite article (e.g. sand, hope, ambition);
little, much, a lot of and some (e.g. a lot of sand, much hope, etc.),
how much (e.g. How much coffee have you drunk?)
• Common nouns can be also broken down into: concrete, abstract
and collective nouns.
• Concrete nouns refer to something that can be seen or touched, i.e.
something that is perceived by the senses, something that is physical
and real (e.g. house, table, library)
• Abstract nouns refer to concepts and phenomena that cannot be
seen or touched, i.e. cannot be perceived by the senses (e.g. love,
hate, anger).
• Collective nouns denote a group or collection of people or things
(e.g. clergy, police, army, committee)
• In Macedonian the nouns are divided into:
• сопствени (personal) (e.g. Марко, Велигден, Вечер) and
• општи (common) (e.g. клупа, дете, часовник).
• Common nouns distinguish between колективни (збирни)
(collective) (e.g. население, мебел, членство) and материјални
(material) nouns (e.g. вода, злато, песок, шеќер).
• Aпстрактни (abstract) (e.g. гордост, храброст, смиреност) and
конкретни (concrete) nouns (e.g. песок, цвет, мравка)

• Exercise 2.
Spot the difference in the classification of nouns in English and
Macedonian!
 Categories of nouns
• Nouns in both English and Macedonian distinguish among several
categories: number, gender, case and (in)definiteness.
 The category of gender
• In English, all nouns belong to one of the four genders: masculine, feminine, neuter and
general.
• The nouns that denote male individuals are of masculine gender (e.g. father, son)
• The nouns that denote female individuals are of feminine gender (e.g. mother, sister)
• These nouns are replaced by the personal pronouns he and she!
• The nouns that are used to refer to objects and animals are of neuter gender (e.g. dog,
book, car, parrot, rock)
• For subsequent reference the pronoun it is used!
• But some animals do have gender differences (e.g. horse vs. mare; cow vs. bull, cook vs.
chicken) /he and she /personification (e.g. The bird sat mourning after her love)
• Nouns that could refer to both male and female individuals are of general gender (e.g.
professor, doctor, student, driver, conductor, parent, friend, client)/ he or
she, he/she, s/he, or they.
 In Macedonian noun gender is both natural and
grammatical
• Determined both by the natural gender and grammatical means
• Nouns that denote individuals and animals representatives of the female sex (e.g.
девојка, жена, птица, овца) /end in the suffix -a are of feminine gender (e.g. книга,
маса, зграда, греда).
• Exceptions (e.g. Инес, пролет, пот, радост, младост, Маре, Бети)
• Тhe nouns that denote representatives of the male sex are of masculine gender
including the majority of nouns that end in a consonant (e.g. Марио, татко, дедо,
цвет, маж, стол, корен, алат, телевизор).
• The nouns that end in –o, -e (e.g. село, дете, пенкало, момче) are of neuter gender.
• !!!Both feminine and masculine gender (e.g. песок – песокот, песокта, пепел -
пепелот, пепелта, жар - жарот, жарта)
• !!!Nouns of feminine gender (e.g. индивидуа, странка, персона) can be used to refer
to both female and male individuals
 The category of number
• The majority of nouns in Macedonian and English have singular and plural forms.
• Nouns in English get the suffix –s to make their plural form (e.g. boy – boys, ticket – tickets)
• The nouns that end in –ch, -x, -sh, -ss, -o, -f, -fe get -es (e.g. class - classes, wife - wives, church -
churches)
• In English there are nouns that have irregular plural (e.g. goose - geese, foot - feet, louse – lice)
• Nouns that have the same form for both singular and plural (e.g. trout, deer, swine, sheep)
/verb in singular or a verb in plural
• Borrowed nouns kept their original plural forms (e.g. phenomenon – phenomena, stratum –
strata, analysis – analyses)
• Borrowed nouns have kept both the foreign plural and the English plural (e.g. appendix –
appendices, appendixes; cactus – cacti, cactuses, medium – media, mediums)
• Nouns always used in plural (e.g. scissors, glasses, jeans, billiards, physics, series, statistics)
• !!!The same noun in singular and plural but different meaning (e.g. beauty = убавина, beauties =
убавици; glass = стакло, glasses = очила; coffee =кафе, coffees = кафиња во ресторан)
 Macedonian nouns
• Most of masculine and feminine nouns make their plural form by adding the suffix –
и (e.g. коњ – коњи, маж – мажи, жена – жени)
• Nouns of neuter gender in plural usually end in the suffix - a (e.g. село – села, лице –
лица, прашање – прашања, срце – срца)
• Some nouns take the suffixes –je, -ja, - ишта (e.g. лист – лисје, трева – тревје, дрво
– дрвја, рид – ридишта)
• Irregular plural (e.g. брат – браќа, човек – луѓе, око – очи, уво – уши)
• Proper nouns are always used in singular (e.g. Petar, Baba Planina), collective nouns
(мебел, челад, кадар), material nouns (вода, шеќер, бакар)
• Exceptions (e.g. три кафиња, видови води/вина, пет Марии)
• Nouns that are always used in plural (e.g. ножици, пантолони, наoчари)
• Exercise 3.
Why should Macedonian learners be particularly cautious when they
use the nouns information and money?
 The possessive case (the Saxon genitive) in English
• The possessive case or the Saxon genitive is a remnant from the Old
English Period / it is expressed by adding -’(apostrophe) and –s to the
noun in singular (e.g. the boy’s mother, James’s car) and nouns in plural
that do not end in –s (e.g. men’s tactic)
• The nouns in plural that end in –s take just the apostrophe (e.g. the
workers’ goal)
• Expressions of time (e.g. yesterday’s news, in two weeks’ time)
• Work premises (e.g. at the dentist’s, at the butcher’s)
• In Macedonian there is no similar case.
• Possession is simply expressed with the preposition на (e.g.
родителите на Оливер) and in some dialects the preposition од (e.g.
мајката од Мара)
• Exceptions (e.g. Петревата цреша, Севдините очи)
 The vocative case in Macedonian
• When a noun is in its vocative case it is normally used to call on somebody,
i.e. to attract somebody’s attention.
• The vocative case is formed when we add the suffix – у and – е to the base
form of nouns of masculine gender (e.g. мажу, коњу, крају,
човеку (и човече), господине, пријателе, мајсторе)
• The nouns of feminine gender get the suffix – o, и - e, (e.g. Горице,
мајчице, Маријо, сваќе, жено, душо, кумо, Веро)
• Exercise 4.
What alternative way can be used in both English and Macedonian to
indicate that a given word or phrase is vocative?
 In Macedonian other remnants of cases:
• The diminutive forms of nouns point to the small size of objects, people, or
phenomena and they take a number of different suffixes: -е (e.g. прсте,
петле, раче); -че (e.g. девојче, ветерче); -ичка (e.g. ластовичка, сестричка);
-енце (e.g. детенце, маченце); -ец (e.g. ветрец, дождец, снежец)
• The augmentative forms of nouns are used to depict something or somebody
as bigger or larger in size than it actually is, usually in order to make fun of
it /-иште and -ина (e.g. вратиште, кравиште, мажетина, краветина)
• The pejoratives are used for expressing one’s negative attitude towards
something or somebody, i.e. to qualify something/somebody as ugly,
repulsive and worth of contempt/-е, -ле, -ло, -ко (e.g. воле, ушле, забле,
вошло, смрдло, плачко, влечко)
In English
• Diminutives, augmentatives and pejoratives are infrequent or almost nonexistent as
they are have become lexicalized/ words.
• The most common diminutives are formed with the prefix mini- and with suffixes
such as -let and –y (e.g. minibus, a booklet, two droplets, Matty, kitty (from ‘kitten’ a
young cat), doggy, bluey (almost blue)), -ck (e.g. hillock, paddock), -ey/-ie (e.g.
dearie, Mikey), -ette (e.g. diskette, cigarette, kitchenette, suffragette), -let (e.g. piglet,
applet, eyelet), -ling (e.g. duckling, darling), -kin (e.g. catkin, babykin, munchkin)
• In English, there are no augmentative suffixes, but there are some prefixes such as
mega- (e.g. megaphone, megalith) and super- (e.g. superman, superdog,
superintendent)/ huge in size
• The pejoratives in English are actually separate lexical items with derogatory
meanings (e.g. idiot, imbecile, dumb, retarded, etc.)
HOMEWORK
Which of the following nouns are abstract, proper and collective nouns?
country, tree, peace, Sherlock Holmes, flock, sheep, Rubens, patience, Bodmin, rivalry, noise, Hyde park, crowd,

Form abstract nouns from these words:

Proud, beautiful, parent, likely, crowd, traitor, infant, sane, courteous, young

Which of the following nouns are countable and which are uncountable?
dog, meat, nuisance, thunder, spoon, fish, cheese, board, party, tree, ox, wine

What are the plural forms of the following nouns?

fly sheep
army swine
story deer
key fish
donkey Japanese
valley Portuguese
leaf tooth-brush
thief housewife
loaf breakdown
half outbreak
belief woman servant
What are the feminine forms of these words?
bachelor sir monk cock
widower fox wizard nephew
shepherd host poet god

Express by using the possessive form:

The car of my father
The house of my parents
The friend of my son-in-law
The toys of the children
The reign of William the Conqueror
The plays of Sophocles

What are the genders of the following nouns?

table, ship, baby, sovereign, professor, puppy, doctor, tomboy, moon, sun, car, widow, lion, window