What is a common noun and proper examples. What is a proper name, examples
Quite often, students ask: "What is a common noun and a proper name?" Despite the simplicity of the question, not everyone knows the definition of these terms and the rules for writing such words. Let's figure it out. After all, in fact, everything is extremely simple and clear.
Common noun
The most significant layer of nouns are They denote the names of a class of objects or phenomena that have a number of features by which they can be attributed to the specified class. For example, common nouns are: cat, table, corner, river, girl. They do not name any particular object or person, animal, but designate a whole class. When we use these words, we mean any cat or dog, any table. Such nouns are written with a small letter.
In linguistics, common nouns are also called appellatives.
Proper name
Unlike common nouns, they make up an insignificant layer of nouns. These words or phrases denote a specific and specific object that exists in a single copy. Proper names include names of people, names of animals, names of cities, rivers, streets, countries. For example: Volga, Olga, Russia, Danube. They are always capitalized and refer to a specific person or single object.
The science of onomastics is engaged in the study of proper names.
Onomastics
So, what is a common noun and a proper name, we have sorted it out. Now let's talk about onomastics - a science that studies proper names. At the same time, not only names are considered, but also the history of their occurrence, how they have changed over time.
Onomast scientists distinguish several directions in this science. So, the study of the names of people is engaged in anthroponymy, the name of peoples - ethnonymy. Cosmonymics and astronomy study the names of stars and planets. Animal nicknames are explored by zoonymy. Theonymy deals with the names of the gods.
This is one of the most promising branches in linguistics. Until now, research on onomastics is being carried out, articles are being published, conferences are being held.
Transition of common nouns to proper names, and vice versa
A common noun and a proper name can move from one group to another. Quite often it happens that a common noun becomes a proper name.
For example, if a person is called by a name that was previously included in the class of common nouns, it becomes its own. A vivid example of such a transformation is the names Vera, Love, Hope. Previously, they were common nouns.
Surnames formed from common nouns also pass into the category of anthroponyms. So, you can highlight the names Kot, Cabbage and many others.
As for proper names, they quite often pass into another category. Often this refers to the names of people. Many inventions bear the names of their authors, sometimes the names of scientists are assigned to quantities or phenomena discovered by them. So, we know the units of ampere and newton.
The names of the heroes of the works can become common nouns. So, the names Don Quixote, Oblomov, Uncle Styopa became the designation of certain features of appearance or character characteristic of people. Names and surnames of historical figures and celebrities can also be used as common nouns, for example, Schumacher and Napoleon.
In such cases, it is necessary to clarify what exactly the addresser has in mind in order to avoid mistakes when writing the word. But often you can from the context. We think you understand what a common noun and a proper name are. The examples we have given show this quite clearly.
Rules for writing proper names
As you know, all parts of speech obey the rules of spelling. Nouns - common noun and proper - are also no exception. Remember a few simple rules that will help you avoid annoying mistakes in the future.
- Proper names are always capitalized, for example: Ivan, Gogol, Catherine the Great.
- Nicknames of people are also capitalized, but without quotation marks.
- Proper names used in the meaning of common nouns are written with a small letter: donquixote, donjuan.
- If service words or generic names (cape, city) stand next to a proper name, then they are written with a small letter: the Volga River, Lake Baikal, Gorky Street.
- If a proper name is the name of a newspaper, cafe, book, then it is taken in quotation marks. In this case, the first word is written with a capital letter, the rest, if they do not belong to proper names, are written with a small letter: "Master and Margarita", "Russian Truth".
- Common nouns are written with a small letter.
As you can see, the rules are pretty simple. Many of them are known to us since childhood.
Summing up
All nouns are divided into two large classes - proper nouns and common nouns. The first is much less than the second. Words can move from one class to another, while acquiring a new meaning. Proper names are always capitalized. Common nouns - with a small one.
Many nouns denoting persons, objects and phenomena are usually classified in accordance with the object of naming - this is how the division into a common noun and a proper name appeared.
Common nouns VS onyms
Common nouns (otherwise - appellatives) name objects that have a certain common set of features and belong to a particular class of objects or phenomena. For example: boy, peach, sturgeon, meeting, mourning, pluralism, uprising.
Proper names, or onyms, call single objects or individuals, for example: writer Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, city Essentuki, painting " girl with peaches", TV center " Ostankino».
Proper names and common nouns, examples of which we have given above, are traditionally opposed to each other, as they have different meanings and do not coincide in the sphere of their functioning.
Typology of common names
The common noun in Russian forms special lexical and grammatical categories, the words in which are grouped depending on the type of the naming object:
1. Specific names (they are also called "concrete-objective") serve as the names of persons, living beings, objects. These words change in numbers and are combined with cardinal numbers: teacher - teachers - the first teacher; chick - chicks; cube - cubes.
2. Abstract, or abstract, nouns name the state, sign, action, result: success, hope, creativity, merit.
3. Real, or material, nouns (they are also called "concrete-material") - words specific in semantics that name certain substances. These words most often do not have a correlative plural form. There are the following groups of real nouns: nominations of food products ( butter, sugar, tea), drug names ( iodine, streptocide), names of chemicals ( fluorine, beryllium), minerals and metals ( potassium, magnesium, iron), other substances ( rubble, snow). Such common nouns, examples of which are given above, can be used in the plural form. This is appropriate when it comes to types and varieties of a substance: wines, cheeses; about the space that is filled with this substance: sands of the Sahara, neutral waters.
4. Collective nouns name a certain set of homogeneous objects, the unity of persons or other living beings: foliage, students, nobility.
"Shifts" in the meaning of common names
Sometimes a common noun includes in its meaning an indication not only of a certain class of objects, but also of some very specific object within its class. This happens if:
- The individual characteristics of the object are ignored as such: for example, there is a folk sign “ Kill a spider - forty sins will be forgiven”, and in this context, it does not mean any particular spider, but absolutely any.
- In the described situation, one specific object of this class is meant: for example, “ Come sit on the bench» - the interlocutors know exactly where the meeting point is.
- The individual features of an object can be described with explanatory definitions: for example: “ I can't forget the wonderful day we met”, - the speaker stands out a specific day among a series of other days.
The transition of nouns from onyms to appellatives
Separate proper names are sometimes used to generically designate a number of homogeneous objects, then they turn into common nouns. Examples: Dzhimorda, Don Juan; Napoleon cake; colt, mauser, revolver; ohm, amp.
Proper names that have become appellatives are called eponyms. In modern speech, they are usually used to jokingly or derogatoryly speak about someone: Aesculapius(doctor), pele(football player) Schumacher(racer, lover of fast driving).
An animate common noun can also become an eponym if any product or institution is called like that: sweets " Bear in the north", oil " Kuban Burenka", restaurant " Senator».
Nomenclature units and trademarks-eponyms
The class of eponyms also includes any proper name of an object or phenomenon, which begins to be used as a common noun for the entire class of similar objects. Examples of eponyms are words such as " diapers, tampax, xerox, in modern speech used as a common noun.
The transition of the own trademark naming into the category of eponyms eliminates the value and uniqueness in the perception of the manufacturer's brand. Yes, an American corporation Xerox, for the first time in 1947, which introduced the world to a device for copying documents, “etched out” the common noun from the English language xerox, replacing it with photocopier and photocopy. In Russian, the words " xerox, xerox, xerox and even " xerify" turned out to be more tenacious, since there is no more suitable word; " photocopy" and its derivatives are not very good options.
A similar situation with the product of the American multinational company Procter & Gamble - diapers Pampers. Any diapers from another company with similar moisture-absorbing qualities are called diapers.
Spelling of proper and common names
The common noun rule governing the spelling norm in Russian recommends writing with a lowercase letter: kid, grasshopper, dream, prosperity, secularization.
Onims also have their own spelling system, however, simple:
These nouns are usually capitalized: Tatyana Larina, Paris, Academician Koroleva street, dog Sharik.
When used with a generic word, the onym forms its own name, denoting the name of a trademark, event, institution, enterprise, etc.; such naming is capitalized and enclosed in quotation marks: VDNKh metro station, Chicago musical, Eugene Onegin novel, Russian Booker award.
Common nouns and proper nouns.
The purpose of the lesson:
to form knowledge and skills to distinguish proper nouns from common nouns,
learn how to write proper names correctly (with a capital letter and using quotation marks).
Lesson type:
Educational and educational.
Common nouns are used to name classes of homogeneous objects, states and actions, persons, plants, birds and animals, natural phenomena, social life. Most of them have singular and plural (mountain - mountains, chamomile - daisies, rain - rains, victory - victories, demonstration - demonstrations, etc.). Common nouns are written with a small letter.
Exercise: Review the story. Name the pictures you saw (example: mountains, seas, etc.). Do they fit under the group of common nouns?
Proper nouns are used to name separate (individual) objects that may be one of a kind.
Proper nouns are always capitalized and in most cases are singular. They can consist either of one word (Bug, Alexander, Boeing, Sahara) or of several words (Ivan Vasilievich, Red Sea, Sophia Square).
Activity: Listen to Little Red Riding Hood's song. Write down all the proper and common nouns you remember.
capitalized, but NOT enclosed in quotation marks:
1. Surnames, first names and patronymics (Ivanov Sergey Nikonorovich), pseudonyms (Maxim Gorky, Lesya Ukrainka), names of characters in fairy tales (Ivanushka, Alyonushka, Pinocchio, Malvina), stories (Ovsov / Chekhov "Horse Family" /), fables ( “The naughty Monkey, Donkey, Goat and clubfoot Mishka decided to play a quartet.” (I. Krylov.).
2) Nicknames of animals (Dzhulka the dog, Jim the cat, Gosh the parrot, Parsley the hamster).
3) Geographical names (Ukraine, the Southern Arctic Ocean, Lake Baikal, the Tibet Mountains, the Black Sea).
4) Names of celestial bodies (Moon, Sun, Jupiter, Orion, Cassiopeia).
5) Names of streets, squares (Pirogovskaya street, Leningradskaya square, Gamarnika lane).
8) Names with the word name (name), even in the case when it is implied, but not written (Park named after T. G. Shevchenko, Gorky Park, School named after V. Chkalov).
9) Names of organizations and higher state institutions (Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Supreme Court of Ukraine).
10) Names of orders, monuments (Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, Order of the Great Patriotic War, Order of Glory; monument to M.Yu. Lermontov, monument to the Unknown Sailor).
11) Names of holidays, memorable dates (days), historical events (Victory Day, New Year, Medical Worker's Day, Teacher's Day, Mother's Day)
capitalized and enclosed in quotation marks:
1) Names of newspapers and magazines, television programs (galette "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Arguments and Facts", the magazine "The Only One", "Fisherman of Ukraine", the program "Field of Miracles", "What? Where? When").
2) Names of literary and musical works, paintings, movie titles (the novel "Crime and Punishment", "The Master and Margarita", the poem "The Prisoner", "Candle", the painting "Black Square", "Bathing the Red Horse", the film " Guest from the Future”, “Petersburg Secrets”), etc.
3) Names of plants, factories, ships, aircraft, cinemas, hotels, and so on (provided that the word “name” is not and is not implied (Krayan plant, Roshen factory, Taras Shevchenko motor ship, Khadzhibey) , Boeing, Tu-124, Zvezdny cinema, Moscow, Krasnaya, Londonskaya hotels).
4) Names of various goods (Lada car, Chanel perfume, Samsung refrigerator, Thomson TV, etc.).
An exercise. Read an excerpt from Korney Chukovsky's poem "Aibolit". Underline proper nouns with a single line, common nouns with a double line.
Suddenly from somewhere a jackal
Rode on a mare:
"Here's a telegram for you
From Hippo!"
"Come, doctor,
Go to Africa soon
And save me doctor
Our babies!"
"What is it? Really
Are your kids sick?"
"Yes, yes, yes! They have a sore throat,
scarlet fever, cholera,
diphtheria, appendicitis,
Malaria and bronchitis!
Come soon
Good Doctor Aibolit!"
"Okay, okay, I'll run,
I will help your children.
But where do you live?
On a mountain or in a swamp?
"We live in Zanzibar,
In the Kalahari and the Sahara
On Mount Fernando Po,
Where hippo walks
Along the wide Limpopo".
An exercise. Highlight proper nouns.
The most famous sailors, travelers, heroes of adventure novels gathered at the meeting of the Club of Famous Captains. The youngest among them was Dick Send, the hero of Jules Verne's novel Captain Fifteen. Everyone considered Tartarin of Tarascon, the hero of the novel by Alphonse Daudet, to be the most cheerful, and Baron Munchausen from Raspe's book was, of course, the most "truthful". All members of the club reckoned with the opinion of the wisest of them, Captain Nemo, one of the heroes of Jules Verne's book "The Mysterious Island".
An exercise. Listen to the song from the movie "Three Musketeers". Answer the question: Burgundy, Normandy, Champagne, Provence, Gascony - proper or common nouns?
In Russian, there are many examples of the transition of a proper name into a common noun.
Here are some examples:
1. Cake Napoleon got its name from the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who loved this type of confectionery.
2. Saxophone - this is how the Belgian master Saks called the wind instrument.
3. The inventors Colt, Nagant, Mauser gave names to the created weapons.
4. According to the place from which they were imported, they got their names orange (Dutch word appelsien), peach (Persia), coffee (cafa country in Africa), trousers (Bruges - a city in Holland).
5. Narcissus - a flower named after the mythological young man Narcissus, who angered the Gods by the fact that, because of falling in love with himself, he only looked at his reflection in the water and did not notice anything or anyone else. The gods turned him into a flower.
Questions to reinforce a new topic:
1. What nouns have singular and plural?
2. How to write correctly: Pushkin cinema, Pushkin cinema?
3. Guess the riddles:
"Flying" city - ______________________________.
"Inanimate" sea - ________________________________.
"Colored" seas - ________________________________.
"Silent" ocean - ____________________________.
Flowers with female names - _____________________.
Homework:
Independently come up with 5-7 riddles, the answer of which will contain a common noun (on the example of those guessed in the classroom) on topics - interesting facts of the Earth, Greek mythology, Russian folk tales.
I'm very sorry for the flood, but can't they write this in a simpler way?
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See what "Common" is in other dictionaries:
common noun- This word (used in combination with a common noun) is a derivational tracing paper from the Latin appellativum (nomen), which in turn is a tracing paper from the Greek prosegorikon (onoma). Latin appello means I call, I call ... Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by Krylov
Name, gram., tracing paper lat. nōmen appellativum from Gr. ὄνομα προσηγορικόν; see Thomsen, Gesch. 16 … Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by Max Fasmer
common noun- (name). Word-building. tracing paper of the 18th century lat. appellative, suf. derived from appellare "to name, name". Wed a terminological synonym for appellative, which is a direct borrowing from lat. lang. See denounce, speech... Etymological dictionary of the Russian language
Common nouns are nouns denoting the name (common name) of a whole class of objects and phenomena that have a certain common set of features, and naming objects or phenomena according to their belonging to such a class. ... ... Wikipedia
Common nouns (tracing paper from Latin nōmen appellativum from Greek ὄνομα προσηγορικόν) are nouns denoting the name (common name) of a whole class of objects and phenomena that have a certain common set of features, and ... ... Wikipedia
See nomen actionis... Five-language dictionary of linguistic terms
Substantive noun), naming an object or phenomenon according to its belonging to a given category, that is, characterized by features that allow the selection of the category [i] itself (a person, a blonde, a city, a river, a constellation, a ship, a book, ... ... Handbook of etymology and historical lexicology
common noun- 1) A generalized name for homogeneous objects and concepts (for example: brother, lake, country, victory) 2) Name, name (usually a literary hero, historical figure, event, etc.), personifying what l. certain properties, qualities, etc. ... ... Dictionary of many expressions
A common expression denoting an unfair trial. It is associated with the same name of the Russian satirical story of the 2nd half of the 17th century, written on the basis of a fairy tale plot common among many peoples. The theme of the story... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Laisa- A common name denoting a young, beautiful, but cold and soulless courtesan. It originates from ancient anecdotes. (Modern Dictionary Reference: Antique World. Compiled by M.I. Umnov. M .: Olympus, AST, 2000) ... Antique world. Dictionary reference.
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" comes from "reproaches", "reproach", and is used for the general name of homogeneous, similar objects and phenomena, and "proper" means "feature", an individual person or a single object. This naming distinguishes it from other objects of the same type.
For example, the common word "river" defines all rivers, but the Dnieper, Yenisei are proper names. These are constant grammatical features of nouns.
What are proper names in Russian
A proper name is an exclusive name for an object, phenomenon, person, different from others, standing out from other multiple concepts.
These are the names and nicknames of people, the names of countries, cities, rivers, seas, astronomical objects, historical events, holidays, books and magazines, animal names.
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 capitalized. For example: Vanya, Morozko, Moscow, Volga, Kremlin, Russia, Russia, 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, firms, events, etc.
Compare: Big theater, but the Sovremennik theater, the Don River and the Quiet Don novel, the play Thunderstorm, the Pravda newspaper, the Admiral Nakhimov motor ship, the Lokomotiv stadium, the Bolshevichka factory, the Mikhailovskoye Museum-Reserve.
Note: the same words, depending on the context, are common or proper and are written according to the rules. Compare: bright sun and star Sun, native earth and planet Earth.
Proper names, consisting of several words and denoting a single concept, are underlined as one member of the sentence.
Let's look at an example: Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov wrote a poem that made him famous. So, 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 the ancient Greek word and means "the art of giving names"
This area of linguistics deals with the study of information about the name of a specific, individual object and identifies several types of names.
Anthroponyms are called proper names and surnames of 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 motifs, lexical features of the indigenous population, economic signs. For example: Rostov-on-Don, Kulikovo field, Sergiev Posad, Magnitogorsk, Strait of Magellan, Yaroslavl, Black Sea, Volkhonka, Red Square, etc.
Astronyms and cosmonyms analyze the appearance of the names of celestial bodies, constellations, galaxies. Examples: Earth, Mars, Venus, Halley's Comet, Stozhary, Ursa Major, Milky Way.
There are other sections in onomastics that study the names of deities and mythological heroes, the names of nationalities, the names of animals, etc., helping to understand their origin.
Common noun - what is it
These nouns name any concept from a set of similar ones. They have a 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 learn the age and gender.
Common noun examples
Common names are all the realities of the world around us. These are words expressing 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 define a proper or common noun
A common noun can be distinguished by meaning, because it names an object or phenomenon related to homogeneous, and a grammatical feature, because it can change by numbers ( year - years, man - people, cat - cats).
But many nouns (collective, abstract, real) do not have a plural form ( childhood, darkness, oil, inspiration) or the only one ( frosts, weekdays, darkness). Common nouns are written with a small letter.
Proper nouns are the distinctive name of single objects. They can only be used in the singular or plural ( Moscow, Cheryomushki, Baikal, Catherine II).
But if they call different persons or objects, they can be used in the plural ( Ivanov family, both Americas). Capitalized, enclosed in quotation marks if necessary.
It is worth noting: between proper and common names there is a constant exchange, they tend to move into the opposite category. common words Faith Hope Love became proper names in Russian.
Many borrowed names were also originally common nouns. For example, Peter - "stone" (Greek), Victor - "winner" (Lat.), Sophia - "wisdom" (Greek).
Often in history, proper names become common nouns: bully (English Houlihan family with a bad reputation), volt (physicist Alessandro Volta), colt (inventor Samuel Colt). Literary characters can acquire a common noun: donquixote, Judas, plushkin.
Toponyms have given names to many objects. For example: cashmere fabric (Kashmir Valley of Hindustan), cognac (province in France). At the same time, an animate proper name becomes an inanimate common noun.
And vice versa, it happens that generic concepts become uncommon: Lefty, cat Fluff, signor Tomato.