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Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Single Cycle Degree Programme in Veterinary Medicine November 2, 2015 Word-classes in English for Veterinary Medicine 1. NOUNS Features of Nouns in English for AWP ² noun or name? (see the handout 1, “Name Words”, unit 2) 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] ü have singular forms and ü take singular verbs and Uncountable nouns [U] plural ü always take a singular verb plural ü can have a/an (= indefinite article) and numbers in front of them ü have many / a lot of / lots of in front of them ü ü only have one form have few / a few in front of them ü never have a/an or a number directly in front of them ü have much / a lot of / lots of in front of them ü have little / a little in front of them ü have some / any / no in front of them ü have some / any / no in front of them (plural forms) It can be useful to list uncountable nouns into the following categories: ü substances: blood, glass, iron, gold, oil, oxygen, plasma, plastic, water, wax, etc.; © 2016 Rosati F. and F. Vaccarelli 1 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Single Cycle Degree Programme in Veterinary Medicine November 2, 2015 ü abstract ideas: access, evidence, freedom, humour, love, progress, relevance, safety, etc.; health, ü verbal nouns (i.e. -ing verbal forms used as nouns): training, rendering, neutering, spaying, breathing, coughing, etc. as well as all the nouns indicating the act of parturition of an animal (see the handout 2, “Species Names”; and the handout 3, “Common Species Names”, unit 2); ü diseases: BSE, chickenpox, cold, influenza, measles, rabies, salmonellosis, smallpox, etc.; ü subjects: biology, chemistry, etiology, mathematics / maths, physics, statistics, etc; ü miscellanea: accommodation, advice, damage, equipment, evidence, 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, contagion, glass, infection, hair, paper); 3 collective nouns can take singular and plural verbs (e.g.: board, committee, government, team; cattle, livestock, offspring, wildlife, poultry); and some of them (e.g.: board, committee, government, team) are considered regular Cnouns, thus having a plural form of their own; 4 to make countable quantities of uncountable nouns you can a) use the formula “a/an … of …” as in the following examples: − an item of information; − two phials of blood; © 2016 Rosati F. and F. Vaccarelli 2 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Single Cycle Degree Programme in Veterinary Medicine November 2, 2015 − four pieces of reasearch; − six surgeries of neutering; − ten books of physics. 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. b) use another similar word, i.e. a synonym (e.g. work è a job / a task; progress è a step forward); c) use a compound noun (e.g. training è a training course; blood è a blood clot). ² 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 è children; foot è feet; goose è geese; louse è lice; man è men; mouse è mice; ox è oxen; tooth è teeth; woman è 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 è knives; wolf è wolves). However, such adaptation is not a permanent feature: in fact, pay attention to chief è chiefs, roof è 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 è cervices; cortex è cortices; phalanx è phalanges; thorax è thoraces as well as to box è boxes; fax è faxes; fox è foxes; ♦ a set of nouns ending in -sis such as analysis, crisis, diagnosis, meiosis, prognosis whose plural forms are © 2016 Rosati F. and F. Vaccarelli 3 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Single Cycle Degree Programme in Veterinary Medicine November 2, 2015 respectively prognoses; analyses, crises, diagnoses; meioses and ♦ a set of countable nouns where singular and plural form are the same1: e.g. deer è deer; offspring è offspring; salmon è salmon; sheep è sheep; species è species; status è status; ² 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) … ² compound nouns (forthcoming) ² collocations (forthcoming) ² false friends (forthcoming) 1 Anyway, be careful to any variations you may find in scientific texts, which not always are reported in dictionaries such as the www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com, www.macmillandictionary.com or http://www.wordreference.com/ © 2016 Rosati F. and F. Vaccarelli 4