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Faculty of Veterinary Medicine / Bioscience and Agro-Food and Environmental Technology March 17, 2015 WORD CLASS 1: NOUNS IN ENGLISH FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY 1) Features of Nouns in BioTech English noun or name? (see the handout 1, “Name Words”, unit 2) countable and/or uncountable Here follows the main features in the behaviour of a C-noun compared to an U-noun: Countable nouns [C] Uncountable nouns [U] have singular and plural forms only have one form take singular and plural verbs always take a singular verb can have a/an (= indefinite article) and numbers in front of them never have a/an or a number directly in front of them have many / a lot of / lots of in front of them have few / a few in front of them have much / a lot of / lots of in front of them have little / a little in front of them It can be useful to list uncountable nouns into the following categories: substances: blood, corn, glass, iron, gold, oil, plasma, plastic, water, wax, wheat, etc.; abstract ideas: access, freedom, progress, relevance, safety, etc.; health, humour, verbal nouns (i.e. -ing verbal forms used as nouns): rendering, neutering, spaying, timing, etc. as well as all the nouns indicating the various acts of parturition (see the handout 2, “Species Names”; and the handout 3, “Common Species Names”, unit 2); © 2015 Rosati F. and F. Vaccarelli 1 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine / Bioscience and Agro-Food and Environmental Technology March 17, 2015 diseases: BSE, cold, influenza, rabies, salmonellosis, etc.; subjects: biology, chemistry, etiology, mathematics / maths, physics, statistics, etc; miscellaneous: accommodation, advertising, advice, damage, equipment, evidence, exposure, hardware, information, money, news, research, software, traffic, training, transport, travel, weather, work, etc. Moreover note that: 1 some words which are countable in some other languages are uncountable in English (e.g. advice, information, management, news); 2 some words can be used in two different ways – one countable, one uncountable (e.g. business, glass, hair, meal, paper); 3 collective nouns can take singular and plural verbs (e.g.: board, committee, government, team; cattle, livestock, offspring, wildlife, poultry); 4 to make countable quantities of uncountable nouns use the formula “a/an … of” as in the following examples: − 100 sheaves / ears of corn; − 21 bunches of wheat; − a field of corn; − a lock / wisp of hair; − an item of information; − four pieces of reasearch; − six surgeries of neutering; − ten books of physics; − two sacks of blood; or use another similar word (= a synonym) or expression (= a synonymic compound word): e.g. work a job / a © 2015 Rosati F. and F. Vaccarelli 2 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine / Bioscience and Agro-Food and Environmental Technology March 17, 2015 task; progress a step forward; training a training course Apart from “an item of …” and “a piece of …” that can be used with almost all the U-nouns, each item needs an adequate periphrasis. standard plural formation with the ending -(e)s plus: ♦ a set of nouns of classical (Greek or Latin) origin (see the handout 4, “Plural Formation”, unit 2); ♦ a small group of nouns maintaining a Germanic plural formation (e.g. child children; goose geese; louse lice; man men; mouse mice; ox oxen; woman women); ♦ a small group of lexical items with a double spelling adaptation – both in the final “f” of the word changing into “v” and in the ending itself where a euphonic “e” goes before final “s” (e.g. knife knives; sheaf sheaves). However, such adaptation is not a permanent feature: in fact, pay attention to chief chiefs, roof roofs; ♦ a set of nouns of classical origin ending in -x such as appendix, index, matrix with a double chance of plural formation: respectively, appendices and appendixes; indices and indexes; matrices and matrixes (see also the handout 4, “Plural Formation”, unit 2). Anyway, pay attention to cervix cervices; cortex cortices; phalanx phalanges; thorax thoraces as well as to box boxes; fax faxes; fox foxes; ♦ a set of nouns ending in -sis such as crisis, diagnosis, meiosis, prognosis whose plural forms are respectively crises, diagnoses; meioses and prognoses; ♦ a set of countable nouns where singular and plural form are the same: e.g. bison bison; deer deer (also deers); elk elk (also elks) salmon salmon (also salmons); sheep sheep; species species; status status; © 2015 Rosati F. and F. Vaccarelli 3 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine / Bioscience and Agro-Food and Environmental Technology March 17, 2015 no gender, but in some cases and in Veterinary English above all (see the handout 2, “Species Names”; and the handout 3, “Common Species Names”, unit 2) … compound nouns (forthcoming) collocations (forthcoming) false friends (forthcoming) © 2015 Rosati F. and F. Vaccarelli 4