CHAPTER 1 : THE ROMANIAN NOUN

A Noun is a word used for naming a person, an animal, a place, a thing, an event or an
abstract idea. In both English and Romanian ,, the noun,, itself represent the same things,
however the difference between English and Romanian, noun are found in case of number
and gender. Nouns are a powerful part of speech and it is one of the most important words we
use when speaking and writing.

We can classify or group nouns into the following categories: proper, common, concrete,
abstract, collective, and compound nouns. The following chart explains these classifications.

The Romanian language is the result of the evolution of the Latin spoken in Dacia
and Moesia after they were conquered and colonized by the Roman Empire and Latin
proved to be strong enough to dissolve and assimilate the native dialects. The Romanian
vocabulary is inherited from Latin, Old Slavic, Bulgarian, Serb, Croatian, Ukrainian,
Russian, Greek, Hungarian, Turkish, Germanic, French, classic Latin, Italian.

There are many elements in Romanian whose origin cannot be established precisely.
The most intense and active influence in Romanian today, as in other European and
especially East European countries and languages, is that of American English.

Inflection.

Romanian is an inflected language: certain categories of words (nouns, articles,

adjectives, pronouns, numerals, verbs) are varied (or inflected) in form in order to express
grammatical relations. Applying inflection never produces a new word, but only a different
form of the same word (i.e.a word form with the same lexical meaning). There are declinable,
conjugated and invariable words in Romanian.

Declension of nominals.

The noun and other nominal parts of speech (article, adjective, pronoun, and numeral)
are declinable in Romanian. The nominals are declined according to the cases. The case of a
word reveals the relationship between a word and other elements in the sentence, as well as
its function in that sentence: subject, direct object, indirect object, the object of a preposition.
The grammatical meaning of a word is reflected by a change in its case.

Romanian’s case system.

There are five cases in Romanian:
- nominative,

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 - genitive,
- dative,
- accusative,
- vocative.
In form the nominative and the accusative are identical, and so are the genitive and the
dative. Functionally, they differ: the nominative is primarily used to express the subject,
while the accusative is the case of the direct object.

The dative is the case of the indirect object, while the genitive is mainly the case of
possession. The vocative is the case of direct address.

Examples:
nominative: Fata este aici. The girl is here.
accusative: Văd copilul. I can see the child.
genitive: Cartea tatălui este aici. The father's book is here.
dative: Îi dau cartea elevului ! I give the book to the student!
vocative: — Băiete, vino încoace! — Boy, come here!
A distinctive feature of Romanian is that it is the proclitic (indefinite) or enclitic
(definite) article which actually changes throughout the declension. The ending for the
genitive-dative feminine is the only ending that is attached to the noun itself.

1.1THE GENDER
Romanian, as any inflective language, is governed by nominal agreement: the forms of
different modifiers (adjectives, pronominal adjectives, ordinal numerals) depend on the
gender and number of the noun. Recognizing the gender of Romanian nouns can be difficult
for several reasons:

A) Romanian is the only Romance language that preserved three genders from the
Latin: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Some of the Romanian neuter nouns are inherited
from Latin: cap – capete head < lat. caput; ou – ouă egg < lat. ovus, etc.

Numerous lexical borrowings from different languages have enriched the group of neuter
nouns:
sfat – sfaturi advice, scop – scopuri goal (neo-gr.),
val – valuri wave (slav.), aparat – aparate apparatus (germ.),
pahar – pahare glass (hung.), computer – computere computer (engl.),

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The distinctive part of the neuter gender in Romanian is that it does not have any formal
particularities. The neuter nouns in the singular look like masculine nouns, while in the plural
they look like feminine nouns. The same applies to adjectives, pronouns and pronominal
adjectives. When they modify or replace a neuter noun in the singular they appear in their
masculine singular form, and when they modify or substitute a neuter noun in the plural they
appear in their feminine plural form.

B) The gender of many inanimate nouns is arbitrary in terms of extralinguistic

categories. For instance, the following nouns belonging to the same thematic group,
have different grammatical genders: pantof – pantofi/shoe is masculine, palton –
paltoane/winter coat is neuter, and fustă – fuste/ skirt is feminine.

C) The dictionary form of a noun (the nominative sing. form) does not help much in
recognizing its gender since there are no formal markers that can indicate without ambiguity
the gender of a noun. There are several ways of establishing the gender of an independent
noun in Romanian.

1.2 Noun ending

- all native nouns ending in a consonant or -u are masculine or neuter; however, some
borrowed proper names or diminutives in a consonant or -u are feminine: Carmen, Irinel,
Lulu

- most nouns ending in -e are feminine (specific suffixes, such as -toare, -oare, -are, -ere,
-ire, etc. also help to distinguish the feminine from the masculine), but a small number are
masculine and a few are neuter

- all nouns ending in -ă, -a (stressed), -ea/-ia (stressed) are feminine; however, there are some
nouns designating male persons that are masculine although their ending is -ă: tată/ father,
popă /priest, Papă/ Pope

- nouns ending in -i can be masculine, neuter or feminine

- all feminine nouns end in a vowel (-ă, -a, -e, -i)

- there are some borrowed nouns in Romanian with non-typical endings, such as -o:
radio/radio, flamingo/ flamingo, canto/ bel canto.

These nouns are neuter if they do not designate animate objects. When such a noun
designates an animate object, its grammatical gender is determined by the natural gender of
its designate.

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1.3 Masculine, neuter, feminine consonant
a) Masculine :
-ă bărbat /man, copil /child, copac /tree, pantof /shoe
-or/-tor: profesor/ teacher, scriitor /writer
-ar: pescar/ fisherman, veterinar/ veterinarian
-er: chelner/ waiter, frizer/ hairdresser
-ic: paznic/ guard
-ist: ziarist /journalist, specialist/ specialist
-an/-ean: ţăran/ peasant, american /American, pământean /earthman
-ân: român /Romanian, păgân /pagan
-ez: francez/ Frenchman, japonez /Japanese
b) Neuter :
-ism: capitalism /capitalism, terorism /terrorism
-ment/-mânt: parlament parliament, recensământ census
-ut: început start
-aj: sondaj poll, etaj floor
c) Feminine :
-ară/oară: secretară /assistant, profesoară/ teacher
-iţă: chelneriţă /waitress, doctoriţă/ doctor
-istă: ziaristă/ journalist, specialistă/ specialist
-ancă/-eancă/-âncă:ţărancă/peasantwoman,pământeancă/earthwoman,
-ână: păgână/ pagan, bătrână/ old lady
-eză: japoneză /Japanese, finlandeză/ Finnish
-(ez/-uz)oaică: chinezoaică/ Chinese, franţuzoaică /French
1.4 Lexical meaning
The following nouns are masculine:
- all proper or common nouns that designate male humans, male animals, and male birds
- all nouns indicating nationalities designating male persons
- all nouns indicating the profession of male persons
- names of trees: plop /poplar tree, castan/ chestnut tree, stejar /oak, palmier/ palm tree,
măr/ apple tree, etc.; however, such names of trees like salcie /willow, magnolie /magnolia
and some others are feminine

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- names of mountain chains (plural only): Carpaţi Carpathians, Balcani Balkans, Alpi Alps,
etc. - the months of the year: ianuarie January, februarie February, martie March, etc.

- the letters of the alphabet, the musical notes, the figures: a, be, ce, de, etc.; do, re, mi, etc.;
doi two, trei three, patru four, etc.
The following nouns are feminine:
- all proper and common nouns that designate female humans, female animals, and female
birds
- all nouns indicating nationalities of female persons, formed by derivation from a masculine
noun
- all nouns indicating the profession of female persons
- most names of countries: Elveţia/Switzerland, Franţa/France, Germania Germany,
Iordania/
However, if the name of a country does not end in -a, it functions as a neuter: Cipru/
Cyprus, Liban/ Lebanon, Maroc/ Maroc, Mexic /Mexico, etc.
- the seasons of the year: primăvară /spring, vară /summer, toamnă /autumn, iarnă /winter
- the days of the week: luni /Monday, marţi/ Tuesday, miercuri /Wednesday, etc.
- most nouns designating fruits: pară /pear, portocală/orange, banană/banana,
lămâie/lemon, etc.; there are, however, names of fruits that are masculine or neuter:
ananas/pineapple (m.), măr/ apple (n.), etc.

The following nouns are neuter:

- many nouns designating inanimate objects, but there are also numerous feminine inanimate
objects, and some masculine
- some nouns designating parts of the human body: cap/head, nas/nose, picior/leg, deget/
finger
However, there are names of parts of human body that are :
- masculine: ochi /eye, genunchi /knee,
- or feminine: mână /hand, gleznă /ankle
1.3 Number
Forming the plural. The plural of nouns is formed by changing the ending of the noun
through addition or substitution. There are not many nouns that form their plural by changing
the ending only. Besides, in most instances, vowel or consonant mutations in the stem also
occur. These morphophonemic alternations are often simple and easily identified:

frate – fraţi - brother, masă – mese - table. student – studenţi- student,

However, there are situations when the morphophonemic alternations make less
transparent the relationship between the singular and the plural form of a noun:

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 mască – măşti =mask, baltă – bălţi =pool, marsh
On the other hand, some nouns similar in form (i.e. nouns with the same ending in the
singular) have differnet plural forms, although they may belong to the same gender:

curcan – curcani (m.) turkey, pană – pene (f.)/ feather

ciocan – ciocane (n.) hammer, cană – căni (f.)/ mug
han – hanuri (n.)/ inn,
Certain feminine, masculine and a few neuter nouns have identical singular and plural forms:
o învăţătoare – două învăţătoare elementary school teacher (fem.),
o marţi – două marţi /Tuesday; un pui – doi pui/ chicken;
un ochi – doi ochi/ eye, un nume – două nume/ name.
There are also some irregular plural forms:
om – oameni /man, human being, zi – zile/ day,
soră – surori /sister, cap – capete /head, etc.

A. Masculine: un – doi . The plural of masculine nouns is formed as follows:

-cons. + -i
un elev – doi elevi school /student, un pantof – doi pantofi /shoe;
un scriitor – doi scriitori / writer, un student – doi studenţi / student,
-u -u → -i
un metru – doi metri / un membru – doi membri / member;
meter,
un ministru – doi miniştri / minister
un fiu – doi fii/ son,
-e -e → -i
un iepure–doi iepuri/ un câine – doi câini / dog;
rabbit,
un frate – doi fraţi / brother,
un peşte – doi peşti / fish,
-i -i = -i
un unchi – doi unchi = uncle, un ochi – doi ochi = eye
-ă -ă → -i
un tată – doi taţi = father, un popă – doi popi = priest
Exceptions: un om – doi oameni man = human being.
B. Feminine: o – două . The plural of feminine nouns is formed as follows:
-ă -ă → -e

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 o studentă – două studente student, o casă – două case house;
o elevă – două eleve school student, o masă – două mese table,
-ă → -i
o uşă – două uşi door, o fabrică – două fabrici factory,
o maşină – două maşini car; o stradă – două străzi street,
-ă → -uri
o marfă – două mărfuri merchandise, o blană – două blănuri fur
-e -e → -i
o lume – două lumi/ world, o pâine – două pâini/ bread;
-toare (inanimate, animals) → -tori:
o ascuţitoare – două ascuţitori/ pencil sharpener,
-toare (persons) -toare:
o scriitoare – două scriitoare/ writer,
-ie (after vowel) -ie → -i
o cheie – două chei /key; o baie – două băi/ bathroom,
-ie (after consonant) -ie → -ii
o bucătărie – două bucătării/ kitchen, o farfurie – două farfurii /plate
-a -a + -le
o sofa – două sofale/ couch, o pijama – două pijamale/ pajamas
-ea -ea → -ele
o cafea – două cafele,coffee o stea – două stele/ star,
-i -i = -i o marţi – două marţi Tuesday, o tanti – două tanti aunt
Exceptions:
o soră – două surori /sister, o mână - două mâini / hand,
o noră – două nurori / daughter-in-law; o zi – două zile /day.

C. Neuter: un - două. The plural of feminine nouns is formed as follows:

-cons. -cons. + -uri
un tren – două trenuri /train, un pat – două paturi / bed,
-cons. + -e
un institut – două institute / institute, un apartament – două apartamente /
apartment,
-u -u → -uri

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 un lucru – două lucruri / thing, un tablou – două tablouri / painting,
-u → -e
un muzeu – două muzee / museum, un teatru – două teatre / theater
-i -i+ -e un tramvai – două tramvaie/ tram
-i + -uri un taxi – două taxiuri / taxi
-e -e = -e un nume – două nume / name
Exceptions:
un cap – două capete / head, un ou – două ouă / egg,
un râs – două râsete / laughter, un seminar – două seminarii / seminar, etc.

7. GRAMMATICAL CASE
There are five cases in Romanian: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and vocative.

- The noun forms in the nominative and the accusative are identical (with few exceptions).

The nominative case is usually the case of the subject in a sentence (case questions: cine?
ce?).

- The noun forms in the genitive and in the dative are also identical.The genitive is, generally,
the case indicating possession or belonging (case question: al, a, ai, ale cui?)

- The vocative has its own forms. The vocative indicates the person to whom the speaker
addresses, and the words in the vocative do not have a syntactic role in the sentence.

- The accusative is the case of the direct object of the verb, but also the case of
circumstantials or attributes built with various prepositions, such as : în/ in, pe/ on, la/ at, cu/
with, lângă/ near, despre/ about, pentru /for, fără /without, etc. (case questions: pe cine? ce?).

- The dative is the case of the indirect object of the verb, and and it shows the destination of
giving (case question: cui?).

Case forms.

If not modified by an adjective or pronominal adjective, the Romanian noun in the

genitive or the dative will always be acoompanied by its article, definite or indefinite. The
element that changes in the genitive-dative forms is the article. It is only the feminine nouns
that take a particular ending in the genitive-dative singular. This ending is identical in form to
the ending for the nominative plural.

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A. Declension with the indefinite article
singular masculine, neuter, feminine
N.-A. un pom/ a tree, un scaun/ a chair, o casă/ a house, o floare/ a flower,etc.
G.-D. unui pom/of a tree, unui scaun/ of a chair, unei case/ of a house, etc
plural masculine, neuter, feminine
N.-A. nişte pomi/ some trees, nişte scaune/ some chairs, nişte flori/ some flowers,etc.
G.-D. unor pomi/of some trees, unor scaune/ of some chairs,etc.
- masculine and neuter nouns (not considering the article) have one form for the singular
and one form for the plural in all cases

- feminine nouns (not considering the article) have one form for the nominative-accusative,
and a different form for the genitive-dative singular and all the cases in the plural

- the indefinite article has three genitive-dative forms: unui (masculine and neuter,
singular),

unei (feminine, singular) and unor (plural for the three genders)

B. Declension with the definite article

singular masculine, neute,r feminine
N.-A. pomul/ the tree, scaunul/ the chair, casa/the house, floarea/ the flower,etc
G.-D. pomului/ to the tree, scaunului/ to the tree, casei/ to the house,etc
plural masculine, neute,r feminine
N.-A. pomii/the trees, scaunele/ the chairs, casele/the houses, florile/ the flowers,etc.
G.-D. pomilorto the trees, scaunelor/ to the chairs, etc.
- masculine and neuter nouns (not considering the article) have one form for the singular
and one form for the plural in all cases
- feminine nouns (not considering the article) have one form for the nominative-
accusative, and a different form for the genitive-dative singular and all the cases in the plural.
However, for the feminine nouns that take the ending
-ii in the nominative-accusative plural (staţie-staţii/station, familie-familii/ family,
bucătărie – bucătării/ kitchen),
-ie in the genitive-dative singular, and the article is attached to this form : staţi-staţii-
staţiei/station, familie-familii-familiei/ family, bucătărie-bucătării-bucătăriei/kitchen
- the definite article has three genitive-dative forms:
- (u)lui (masculine and neuter, singular),
-i (feminine, singular)

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 -lor (plural for the three genders)
C. Accusative (direct object) with and without the preposition ,,pe,,
The usage of the prepositional marker pe for the direct object is a specific feature of
Romanian. The rules about when to use pe with the direct object are numerous and are
insufficiently codified. In general, one can tell when pe should be used by taking into account
a series of semantic (animate +/–, person +/–, definite +/–) and morphological attributes of
the utterance.

D. The genitive.
The genitive indicates possession, belonging or origin.
The case question of the genitive is al, a, ai, ale cui? whose?
In simple constructions or sentences, the noun in the genitive is placed after the noun that
it modifies, in its immediate proximity:
cartea profesorului/ professor's book;
mama Corinei/ Corina's mother;
In such simple combinations, the noun modified by the genitive takes the definite article.
If the modified noun takes the indefinite article, or if it is modified by one or more adjectives
or by a noun in the accusative, the noun in the genitive will take the possessive or genitival
article: o carte a profesorului a book of the professor's,

cartea nouă a profesorului the new professor's book ;

The genitive case is required by many prepositions, such as:
- asupra/ about, regarding: Discuţia asupra metodelor de evaluare a durat două ore. /
The discussion regarding the evaluation methods lasted for 2
hours.
- contra /against: Argumentele contra poziţiei mele nu au fost convingătoare. /
The arguments against my position were not convincing.
- deasupra / pe deasupra /over: Zborul deasupra / pe deasupra oceanului este fascinant./
The flight over the ocean is fascinating.
- înaintea / dinaintea / de dinaintea before: E liniştea dinaintea furtunii./
This is the calm before the storm.
- înapoia / dinapoia / de dinapoia behind: Curtea dinapoia casei e mică./
The yard behind the house is small.
- în faţa/ in front of: — Suntem în faţa Ateneului Român. /
We are in front of the Romanian Atheneum.

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E. The dative. The dative indicates the person or thing the action of the verb is directed to.
The case question of the dative is cui? to whom?
The dative comes after certain verbs related to the general idea of 'giving':
a da/ to give: - I-am dat colegei tale cărţile de spaniolă./
I gave your colleague the Spanish text books.
a oferi/ to offer: - Azi le ofer prietenilor daruri./
I'm offering gifts to my friends today.
a înmâna/ to hand in: - Decanul le-a înmânat diplomele studenţilor. /
The dean handed in the diplomas to the students.
F. Proper names of persons in the genitive-dative
The names of persons have some particular features in declension. They are very rarely
declined with an indefinite article.
- The feminine first names that end in :
-a (including foreign names) are declined like the common nouns with definite article
(N.–A. Maria, G.–D. Mariei):
- Maria (nominative) are un frate./ Maria has a brother.
- Stau de vorbă cu Maria (accusative)./ I'm speaking with Maria.
- El este fratele Mariei (genitive). / He is Maria's brother.
- The genitive-dative of the feminine first names in
- ca will have the ending in ,,-căi,,: Ilinca-Ilincăi, Rodica-Rodicăi, Anca-Ancăi, Florica-
Floricăi
To form the genitive-dative of all masculine first names and of the feminine first names
ending in consonant,, -i, -u,, etc., the definite article lui must be placed before the noun: lui
Ion, lui Vasile, lui Alexandru, lui Mircea, lui Luca (masculine), lui Carmen, lui Mimi, lui
Irinel, etc.

- Alexandru (nominative) are o soră./ Alexandru has a sister.

- Stau de vorbă cu Alexandru. (accusative)./ I'm speaking with Alexandru.
- Ea este sora lui Alexandru. (genitive). /She is Alexandru's sister.
- I-am dat lui Alexandru (dative)toate cărţile mele./ I gave Alexandru all my books.
G. Vocative.

The vocative can be identical in form with the nominative-accusative, or it can take special
case endings. The general tendency in contemporary Romanian is not to use the special
endings, i.e. to use the nominative case forms instead of the vocative case forms. Intonation is
the most important means to convey the idea of addressing or calling somebody.

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 Forming the vocative.The endings of the vocative are:
a) singular masculine and feminine
-cons. + -e
băiat – băiete!/ boy prieten – prietene!/ friend
-ă, -a, → o
soră – soro! /sister fată – fato!/ girl
i -u + -le
fiu – fiule! / Son erou – eroule! / hero
-cons., -i + -ule
domn – domnule! / Sir unchi – unchiule!/ uncle
-e + -o
vrăjitoare – vrăjitoareo!/ Witch
b) plural masculine and feminine ,, -lor,,
domni – domnilor!/ gentlemen eroi – eroilor! Heroes
fraţi – fraţilor! brothers doamne – doamnelor! Ladies
The nouns in the vocative can be preceded by specific interjections that introduce the
vocative forms, such as măi, mă, bre, hei:
— Măi, Ioane, mă auzi? / Hey, Ion, do you hear me ?
— Vino, mă, vere, încoace! / Come here, dude !
— Hei, omule, aşteaptă-mă! / Hey, man, wait up !

CHAPTER 2 : THE ENGLISH NOUN

The word "English" comes from the name of the "Angles", precisely the name of loved
ancestral region of "Angeln". The English language has its origins in the interference of
related dialects, Old English, and the Germanic Anglo-Saxon nomads during the 5th century.
While many languages contributed extensively to nowadays English, the basic words are
derived especially from the speech of the Anglo-Saxons.

The English language was spoken in the English Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, now the south-
east region of Scotland. 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
extend all around the globe, becoming the international language.

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 An interesting study has shown that of the one thousand words that recur most
frequently in speaking and writing in English, 60% come from Old English, 30 come from
French, 3% come from Latin, and the small rest comes from various North Germanic
languages.It is not only in vocabulary that this relationship 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 on the Latin’s words , because the
Latin language 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.

Therefore, the basis of this new language was Old English, enriched by French and Latin
words.
The Noun

Traditionally, a noun is defined as a word that names “a person, place, thing, or idea”.
This defines the noun category according to what its members are assumed to typically
denote, so it is a meaning based or semantic definition. Occasionally this definition gets
abbreviated to “a noun is a person, place, or thing,” which makes no sense at all!) . As
definition, Michael, France and Winter are all nouns, which is correct, so the definition
provides a useful start. However, if we apply it precisely, and, to be worth keeping,
definitions should be precisely applicable, then the word object is not a noun because it
denotes, not a thing, but a whole class of things.

2.1. Types of Nouns

- Proper - Proper nouns label specific people, places, or things. The first letter must be
capitalized ( Susan, Michael, London, Bucharest, Tom, England)
- Common - Common nouns label general groups, places, people, or things ( school,
street,cat, tree, fear, love )
- Concrete - Concrete nouns label things experienced through the senses of sight, hearing,
taste, smell, and touch.
- Abstract - Abstract nouns label things not knowable through the senses.
- Collective - Collective nouns label groups as a unit.
- Compound - Compound nouns label a single concept composed of two or more words.
A noun can belong to more than one group. For example, suntan lotion is both a
common and a concrete noun, as well as a compound noun. Most nouns are like object in
this regard—peacock denotes not a peacock but all the peacocks living now, as well as all
those that existed before, all those that will ever exist, and all the peacocks that we merely
imagine. If we want to refer to one peacock, we have to add a modifier such as a—a peacock,
a desk, a book, a hard drive. We might revise our definition to take such nouns into account
“nouns name classes of persons, places, things, and ideas. But now we require France to refer
not to one France , but to a whole set of them, which doesn’t seem quite right.
So, there is something right about saying that nouns name classes of things, but there also

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seem to be nouns that name individual things.
The nouns that name classes of things are common nouns; the nouns (and other types of
expression) that name individual things are proper nouns: printer is a common noun;
London is a proper noun.
In English, we conventionally capitalize the initial letter of proper nouns. A common
noun can be turned into a proper noun, in which case it should be capitalized; for instance, we
have a friend whose dog’s name is Dog. Similarly, we can distinguish god (of which there
may be many) from God (which is presumed to be unique—at least in some contexts).
Proper nouns name individual things. But these things are many and varied. They include
individual people (Michael), individual animals (Pappy), individual places (La Paz);
individual things (Earth).
Thing seems to us to denote only things that can be individuated and counted—thing one,
thing two; one chair, two chairs, and so on. But grease doesn’t seem to allow this; we don’t
say two greases, or even just one grease. Grease is like milk and information and lots of other
similar words in that it seems to denote stuff physical or mental, rather than individual things.
So, we might revise our definition of noun again, and say that “common nouns name classes
of things and stuff or “nouns name classes of entities and substances.” We’ll return to this
issue below when we distinguish more fully between count and uncount nouns.
So we must look at other characteristics of nouns if we are to have any success in finding
ways to identify them.
2.2 Formal characteristics of nouns
2.2.1 The regular noun inflections
The majority of English nouns accept the -s as plural. The exceptions are the small
subclass of nouns that refer to animals (deer, fish, etc.), nouns that denote stuffs (grease,
oatmeal, ice), and nouns that mark the plural in distinctive ways
child/children / copil uncle/aunt/ unchi, mătușă
man/men / bărbat grandson/granddaughter/ nepot,
nepoată
woman/women / femeie
nephew/nice/ nepot, nepoată
A general principle of language is that irregularity tends to occur in the most
frequently used or most over learned items. As a result, the native English speaking
students know many of the most frequently used irregular forms, although the
irregularities may vary from dialect to dialect.
a) - the inflected pluaral forms of nouns :
insect/insects/ insectă calf/calves/vițel
email/emails/ mesaj promise/promises/ promisiune
hinge/hinges/balama daisy/deisies/margaretă

b) - words have zero derivation/conversion :

disease/disease/ boală rip-off/ escrocherie;

14
 snap/ pocnet; update/ instiintare, notificare.
wipeout/ derapare,cadere,distrugere;
2.2.2 A word may be a noun if it actually ends in a nominal derivational suffix.
In English, the last derivational suffix on a word gives a strong clue to the word’s
grammatical class. If the last suffix is one of those listed, is a good indication that the word is
a noun.

Suffix : Example
-ude gratitude Suffix : Example :
-ard drunkard -ist existentialist
-age acreage, mileage -ity activity
-ance/-ence tolerance, adherence -hood knighthood
-er/or teacher, actor -ism existentialism
-ess actress -th truth
-cy decency -(a)tion adulation,fruition
-dom freedom -ment amusement

-ment is another suffix that is used to make nouns from verbs and occasionally from
adjectives:
- replace
- appoint
- arrange
-ness is one of a number of noun suffixes. It is used to make nouns from adjectives,
although not every adjective can be modified in this way.
- happy
- sad
- weak
- good
-ship (abstract nouns denoting different kinds of relationships), more restrictive noun
suffixes, noun from noun
- friendship
- partnership
- membership

In English, a noun is formed by adding suffixes to other categories of words. For

15
 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 “:

The verb "to explore" = exploration The verb "to write" = writer

The verb "to contest" = contestant The noun "actor" = actress

The verb "to lie" = liar The verb "to build" = building

The verb "to drain" = drainage The adjective "rapid" = rapidity

The verb "to perform" = performance The noun "Paris" = Parisian

The noun "king" = kingdom The adjective "social" = socialist

The verb "to employ" = employee The noun "ideal" = idealism

The verb "to profit" = profiteer The adjective "kind" = kindness

2.2. 3. A word may be a noun if it can occur alone after a word that typically precedes
nouns and together they constitute a complete phrase.
Nouns can be identified by the company they can keep. Words that can occur immediately
before nouns and together with a noun create a potentially complete noun phrase are:
a. articles: a, an (indefinite) - a bulldog/un buldog
the (definite) -the building / clădirea
b. genitives: my, our, your, his, her, its, our,
genitive noun phrases ( my novel/romanul meu, our class/ clasa noastră, Sheila’s desk/
banca Sheilei, the man’s car/ mașina bărbatului)
c. demonstratives: this, that, these, those ( that cup/ceașca aceea)
d. quantifiers: some, any, all, no, every, numerals (every time/fiecare timp, two pots/două
oale) ordinals (first, second, etc.) (first place/ primul loc)
e. most adjectives: good, subtle, etc. ( good work/treabă bună )

2.2.4 The genre

The divisions of gender include the following: masculine, feminine, neuter, animate and
inanimate. The gender allocation is determined by the meaning of the words. The
grammatical gender can 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.
The genre of nouns (feminine, masculine, neutral) is sometimes underlined by the
use of different words:

16
 Feminin roman
Masculin romanian romanian Neutru
english english ian

man barbat woman femeie person persoana

father tata mother mama parent parinte
boy baiat girl fata child copil

uncle unchi aunt matusa

husband sot wife sotie spouse sot/sotie

nepoata(de
nephew nepot(de unchi) nice
unchi)

grandson nepot (de bunic) granddaughter nepot (de bunic)

actor actor actress actrita

prince print princess printesa

2.3 Number: singular and plural
The change in form between singular and plural, or rather the choice between the two, is
called ‘number’. This is a word you already know, but here it is being used in a slightly
different way, as a technical term. Number is an obligatory choice in English (unlike some
languages).
Nouns must be either singular or plural:
table/tables/masă . book/ books/ carte boy/ boys/băiat
However, not all nouns in English have both a singular and plural (and this means that on
its own it is not always a reliable test of whether a word is a noun). There are some nouns
which only occur in the singular; we will look at them later in this section.
2.3.1 Plural nouns.
There are also some nouns that only occur as plurals; here are some examples:
binoculars/binocular, clothes/haine, glasses/ochelari, jeans/blugi, scissors/ foarfecă,
shorts/pantaloni scurți, trousers/ pantaloni, etc.
They look just like any other plural, but it is not possible to remove the ‘s’ to make a
singular form; ‘clothe’ is not acceptable. And it is not possible to use a number in front: ‘two
clothes’, though a plural quantifier is possible: many clothes.
In other cases a singular is possible but it has a different meaning. Where needed, a
counting expression, such as ,,a pair of/ / o pereche”, can be used to make them countable:
a pair of scissors - o foarfeca a pair of trousers - o pereche de pantaloni
As you can see from the examples above, several plural nouns refer to items of clothing
or tools, but there are many others:

17
 authorities- autorități grounds- teren, zaț, drojdi
congratulations -felicitări surrounding- imprejurime
contents- conținut thanks- muțtumiri
good- marfă, bunuri troops- trupa de soldați

2.3.2 Problems with number.

In addition to plural nouns, there are other problems with number:
- There are words that look plural, in that they seem to have an added ,, -s”, but which in
fact are singular, for example :
measles/pojar, tenie mathematics/ matematica
news/stiri, vesti
- There are words which look singular but are plural:
cattle, people, police : The police have been informed.
- There are some nouns referring to groups of people, called ‘collective’ nouns, which
can be plural or singular, depending on whether they are regarded as a single group or as a
collection of individuals: committee, enemy, government, team, family.
Her family has produced many politicians.
The plural is the normal choice with the names of football teams because they are
regarded as a collection of individuals: Manchester United are coming to play here.
The relationship between nouns as subjects and verbs is called ‘agreement’.
2.3.2.1 The meaning of number.
What is the difference in meaning between singular and plural? As we saw with
collective nouns, it is often possible to see some things in two ways, there are some nouns
that seem to contradict this principle. Therefore some plural nouns, such as scissors and
trousers, are clearly referring to one item , although originally they were made of two parts.
2.3.3 The formation of plurals
Plurals are formed from the singular form of nouns.
Most plurals are formed regularly by the addition of s or es in writing (and replacing a
final y after a consonant with ies), and by the addition of /s/, /z/ or /iz/ in speech.
Here are some examples of regular plurals:
cat/cats /s/ pisică story/stories /z/ poveste
dog/dogs /z/ câine watch/watches /iz/ ceas
That the written and spoken additions do not always coincide; judges only has -s in
spelling to show the plural, but adds /iz/ in pronunciation.
2.3.3.1 Irregular plurals A few nouns have irregular plurals.
‘Irregular’ means that the form of the plural cannot be predicted from the singular.

18
 The most common are:
children (from child),/ copii mice (mouse), / șoareci
feet (foot),/picior teeth (tooth),/ dinți
men (man),/ bărbat women (woman)/ femei
Then there are a number of words referring to animals that have a ‘zero’ plural, for
example sheep, deer.
There are also a few nouns ending in ,,-f,, or ,,-fe,, which form their plural with ,,-ves,,
in writing, for example
knife-knives/ cuțit thief-thieves hoț
leaf-leaves/frunză wife-wives /nevastă, soție
life-lives/ viață wolf - wolves/ lup
In pronunciation the /f/ changes to /vz/.

Words borrowed from foreign languages (typically Latin, Greek and French) are another
source of irregular plurals. Here are some examples (singular/plural):
criterion/criteria/ criteriu stimulus/stimuli / stimuli
crisis/crises / criză chateau/chateaux/ castel
curriculum/curricula / curriculum
In addition there are a number of words that have two possible plurals, one regular and
one irregular, for example hoofs/hooves.
2.4 The genitive. This is the other way in which nouns change their form; it is also called the
‘possessive’ form. The genitive is formed by adding ’s to the singular and an apostrophe to
the plural:
singular - cat genitive: cat’s plural - cats genitive: cats’
The pronunciation of both is exactly the same as for the regular plural, and there are the
same three possible pronunciations
In many cases there is hesitation over whether to spell words as a genitive or plural ,
since the pronunciation is the same, especially if the head noun is no longer mentioned, for
example: I’m going to the butcher’s/butchers. - where shop is not mentioned
An apostrophe is sometimes used to mark an unusual plural form:
I’ve got no 10’s but two 20’s.
The genitive is really a feature of the noun phrase rather than nouns. If the noun phrase
has postmodification (that is, some words following which affect its meaning ), or involves
coordination , the ending is attached to the last noun:
E.g. The manager of the team’s decision (the manager’s decision, not the team’s) Will
and Emma’s car.
2.4.1 Meaning and use of the genitive. The genitive is used to modify another noun; it is
part of a noun phrase and has the same position and function as determiners :

19
 Where’s the cat’s blue bowl? Cats’ paws suffer many injuries. The meaning is often said
to involve possession (John’s car), but there are many other relationships that are shown
(which is why ‘genitive’ is a better name than ‘possessive’).
2.4.2 The genitive and ‘of’ phrases. The genitive is sometimes said to be equivalent to
postmodification of a noun with an of phrase:
the man’s death / the death of the man
but there are situations where both can sound strange:
the day’s start (?) vs the start of the day
the car of John (?) vs John’s car
There are a number of factors or tendencies that affect the choice.
With animate nouns (that is, those referring to people or animals) the genitive is most
common, as in the activity above, particularly when it is indicating an underlying subject for
example, Peter’s decision, but there are situations where it is used with inanimate nouns to
refer to times and places, or to part/whole relationships:
next year’s fashions, the table’s surface
London’s attractions,
The of construction is more common with long noun phrases:
- the success of the youthful English cricket team (rather than the youthful English
cricket team’s success)
Another use of the genitive is in a construction called the ‘double genitive’ where it is
part of an of phrase:
- He’s a friend of John’s. Compared to - He is John’s friend,
this construction allows a determiner, usually ,,a,,, to be added to the head noun, as in
the example. It is also possible to say,, a friend of John,,, without the genitive, but this sounds
less idiomatic.

2.5 Common and proper nouns

We can make two important distinctions between types of noun. The first is between
common and proper nouns.Common nouns make up the great majority of nouns in a
language.
Proper nouns are the ‘names’ of unique people, places, geographical features,
organisations, and so on; they have no lexical meaning and generally do not appear in
dictionaries. In writing we can recognise proper nouns because they start with a capital letter,
for example:
France Microsoft,
Michael,
Romania
Fred Smith
London,
One formal feature is that they tend to appear with no determiner or modification,
though actually the commonly precedes certain types of proper noun:

20
 rivers (the Thames),
mountain ranges (the Alps) and so on
and is also capitalised in a few cases:
The Hague, The Times
It is more accurate to say that proper nouns do not allow any contrast in determiners.
However, there are situations where they are found with determiners or modification or in the
plural:
- There are two Mark Browns in my class.
- They say he’s the next Maradona.
- He remembered an England of green fields and endless summers.
We say that these nouns have been converted into common nouns, even though the
capital letter is retained.
2.6 Count and noncount nouns. A large number of nouns in English cannot have a plural
or be preceded by a, for example:
advice, luck,
air, milk,
fun, weather
We cannot say, for example,
‘an advice’ or ‘two advices’, ‘a luck’ or ‘two lucks’.
Nouns which can have a plural or a singular with a are called count nouns, they
constitute the majority of nouns. Nouns referring to things that are easily divisible into units
are count, those that are conceived as a mass are noncount. Thus water is noncount while
river and lake are count. There is also a tendency for count nouns to refer to concrete things ,
which we can see or feel , and noncount nouns to be abstract, but there are exceptions:
abstract count nouns:
idea, thought,
statement, description
concrete noncount nouns:
bread, money,
butter, sugar
milk,
And some nouns are unexpectedly noncount, for example
advice information.
This even applies to concrete nouns such as furniture there is no plural ‘furnitures’ .
Where it is necessary to count such noncount nouns, counting expressions can be used,
for example,
a piece of advice, a loaf of bread,

21
two items of furniture
2.7 VARIATION IN ENGLISH In some varieties of English, certain nouns have a
different count status. For example, ,,staff,, can be a count noun so it is possible to say ,,a
staff,,, whereas in standard English you would say ‘a member of staff’
2.7.1 TERMINOLOGY. Why do we say, in scientific grammar, ‘count’ and ‘noncount’
rather than ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’? What can be counted but also cannot be counted?’
The answer is: ‘money’. How is this possible? Well, in the general sense it is of course
possible to count money. We can flick through a wad of notes saying ‘10 dollars, 20 dollars,
30 dollars’, etc.
But in the linguistic or grammatical sense it is not possible; we cannot say ‘one money,
two moneys’ etc. The apparent paradox can be rephrased in this way: ‘You can count money
but you can’t count money, we can make things clearer, but this would not be obvious in
speech. And we need to realise that the two uses of the verb ‘count’ are very different. One
has the ordinary, lexical meaning, the other has a technical meaning, in the sense of being
able to make a word plural and/or put numbers and the indefinite article in front. If we now
use an adjective instead of the verb we get: ‘Money is countable but money is uncountable.’
2.7.2 NOUN PHRASES AND DETERMINERS
Noun phrases. A noun phrase is a noun and all the words that ‘go’ with it. It can consist of
just a noun:
Money is bad for you. London is a fantastic place.
People are strange.
A pronoun can also function as a noun phrase: ,, She is my best friend.”
But usually there is more than one word. Noun phrases can consist of up to four parts :
DETERMINER, PREMODIFIER, HEAD, POSTMODIFIER
The four parts of a noun phrase
- Determiners, as a distinct word class, are given a fuller treatment afterwards.
- Heads The head is the central part of a noun phrase; it is the only part which is obligatory,
though if it is a singular count noun, there must be a determiner with it: a table or that table,
not simply ‘table’. Heads are usually nouns, but can sometimes be adjectives (the poor); . The
head is the word that changes for number. It agrees with the determiner and any following
verb (if the noun phrase is the subject).
- Premodifiers. The function of premodifiers is to add information about the head noun; to
‘modify’ or limit its meaning. So the reference of red roses and science students is more
restricted than that of roses and students. Typically premodifiers consist of one or more
adjectives: big business; small change; a beautiful, red dress. However, nouns are also
common: a newspaper reporter; a paper cutter; climate change.
- Postmodifier. When a noun is used as a premodifier, it can be related to a noun phrase
with a postmodifying prepositional phrase (see below under postmodification): ,,a reporter
for a newspaper”.
Look at the noun phrases below and say whether the underlined premodifiers are
adjectives or nouns.

22
 1. business communication 4. modern communication
2. (a) summery dress 5. (the) summer term
3. (a) car driver 6. (a) brown paper bag
2.7.3 Compound nouns
2.7.3.1 Nouns formed with gerund ('-ing') + noun: 'dancing-shoes'
1. When a noun has two or more parts (e.g. classroom), we call it a compound noun. We
can make compound nouns with the -ing form:
e.g. dancing-shoes
2. The -ing form can sometimes be an adjective: Can you see that'dancing'couple?
(couple that is dancing) When the -ing form is an adjective, we stress both words and never
use a hyphen.
3. The -ing form can be the first part of a compound noun:
I need a pair of 'dancing-shoes. (shoes used for dancing; not 'shoes that are dancing')
When the -ing form is a noun, we stress the first word only and a hyphen is optional.
2.7.3.2 Apostrophes ('s) or compound noun?
1 . We use apostrophe ('s) and s apostrophe with people and some living things to show
possession: ,, Gus's car, the girls' shoes, a dog's bark.”
2 . When we want to show possession with things, we can use of:,, the leg of the table.”
However, we often prefer to use a compound noun instead of “of”:,, the table-leg.”
3. We can say the voice of a man or a man's voice. Not “a man voice”.
We can say the leg of a table or a table-leg. Not “a table's leg”.
2.7.3.3 Compound nouns which tell us about materials and substances
1. Names of materials and substances (leather, gold) are like adjectives when we use
them to form compound nouns:,, a watch made of gold - a gold watch. (Not "golden')”
These words behave like adjectives in this one way, but they remain nouns because they
do not have comparative or superlative forms and we cannot put very in front of them. We
stress both words in spoken English:,, I can't afford a 'gold'watch.”
2. Two important exceptions are wood and wool, which have adjectival forms:
a table made of wood + a wooden table;
a dress made of wool + a woollen dress.
3. There are adjectival forms for words like gold:
glass/glassy, silk/silky/silken,
gold/golden, steel/steely,
leather/leathery, stone/stony.
silver/silvery,

23
 We use them to mean 'like': a golden sunset - a sunset like gold.
2.7.3.4 Compound nouns: car park, mother-in-law, breakdown
A single noun is often not enough to refer clearly to a person or thing. When this is the
case, a compound noun can be used.
A compound noun is a fixed expression that is made from more than one word, and that
behaves as a noun.
I am looking in a new address book .
How would one actually choose a small personal computer?
We are going to a private swimming pool.
Once it is clear what you are referring to, it is sometimes possible to use just the second
word of a two-word compound noun. For example, after mentioning a swimming pool, you
can just refer to the pool. Most compound nouns consist of two words, but some consist of
three or more words. ,,…a vase of lily of the valley.”
2.7.3.5 Two words, one word and a hyphen
Some compound nouns are written with hyphens instead of spaces between the
words. ,, I’m looking forward to a lie-in tomorrow.”
,, He’s very good at problem-solving.”
,,Judy’s brother-in-law lived with his family”.
Some compound nouns, especially very frequent ones, are written as one word. …
patterned wallpaper. They copied questions from the blackboard. In some cases, you can
choose whether to write a compound noun with or without a hyphen, or with or without a
space. For example, both ,,airconditioner and air conditioner” are possible, and both postbox
and post box are possible. A few compound nouns that consist of more than two words are
written partly with hyphens and partly with spaces, for example back-seat driver and bring-
and-buy sale. ,,…children from one-parent families.”
,,…a Parent-Teacher Association.”
Compound nouns may be countable, uncountable, singular, or plural.
Here is a list of some common countable compound nouns:
address book, air conditioner, air raid,
baby-sitter compact disc, musical instrument,
back-seat driver, driving licence , T-shirt,swimming pool ,
bank account , father-in-law, telephone number,
bird of prey, film star, X-ray,washing machine ,,
brother-in-law high school , zebra crossing,
bus stop , human being, lily of the valley,
car park, mother-in-law, alarm clock,
Here is a list of some common uncountable compound nouns:

24
air conditioning cotton wool lost property
air-traffic control data processing mineral water
barbed wire do-it-yourself old age
birth control dry-cleaning pocket money
blood pressure family planning science fiction
chewing gum income tax writing paper
common sense law and order
Here is a list of some common singular compound nouns:
age of consent, cost of living, fire brigade,
arms race, death penalty, general public,
brain drain, diplomatic corps, generation gap,
continental divide, dress circle ,
Here is a list of some common plural compound nouns:
armed forces, French fries, industrial relations,
baked beans, grass roots, inverted commas,
civil rights, high heels, winter sports,
current affairs, human rights, yellow pages

Composition of compound nouns. Most compound nouns consist of two nouns, or an

adjective and a noun. ,, I listened with anticipation to the radio news bulletin.”
,, Old age is a time for reflection and slowing down.”
However, some compound nouns are related to phrasal verbs. These are sometimes
written with a hyphen, and sometimes as one word. They are rarely written as separate words.
,, The President was directly involved in the Watergate cover-up.”
,, I think there’s been a mix-up.”
Here is a list of frequent nouns based on phrasal verbs. They are shown in this list in the
form in which they are most frequently written, either with a hyphen or as one word.
backup, checkout, giveaway,
breakaway, check-up, lookout,
breakdown, comeback, make-up,
break-in, countdown, mix-up,
breakout, cover-up passer-by,
break-up, feedback, run-in,
check-in, follow-up, runner-up,

25
2.7.3.6 Plural forms. The plural forms of compound nouns vary according to the type of
words that they consist of. If the final word of a compound noun is a countable noun, the
plural form of the countable noun is used when the compound noun is plural.
Air raids were taking place every night.
Loud voices could be heard through letter boxes.
Compound nouns that are directly related to phrasal verbs usually have a plural form
ending in -s.
Nobody seems disturbed about cover-ups when they are essential to the conduct of a war.
Naturally, I think people who drive smarter, faster cars than mine are showoffs.
A few compound nouns are less directly related to phrasal verbs, and consist of a
countable noun and an adverb. In these cases, the plural form of the countable noun is used
before the adverb when the compound noun is plural. For example, the plural of ,,runner-up”
is ,,runners-up”, and the plural of ,,summingup” is ,,summings-up”.
e g. Passers-by helped the victim, who was unconscious.
Compound nouns that consist of two nouns linked by the prepositions ,,of” or ,,in”, or a
noun followed by ,,to be”, have a plural form in which the first noun in the compound is
plural.
I like birds of prey and hawks particularly.
She was treated with contempt by her sisters-in-law.
Most mothers-to-be in their forties opt for this test.

Some compound nouns have been borrowed from other languages, mainly French and
Latin, and therefore do not have normal English plural forms.
Agents provocateurs were sent to cause trouble.
The nouveaux riches of younger states are building palatial mansions for themselves.
Compound nouns are fixed expressions. However, nouns can always be used in front of
other nouns in order to refer to something in a more specific way.

Chapter 3 The difference and the similarity between English and

Romanian parts of speech

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).

English is different from Romanian because English it is a derivative form of the early
German language which merged with the Old English and some Latin influences and
Romanian is the result of the unification of Dacia’s language and Latin language and has
been influenced by many other languages such as: Slavic , French, German, Greek, Turkish,
etc. Another difference between the two languages it is because English is the most widely
spread language in the world. It has grown to be the third most used language in the world

26
considering the number of native speakers, after Spanish, Mandarin and Chinese.
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 the Sardinian,
Spanish and French. Romanian is considered to be the only Romance language which
contains enclitic definite articles; they are attached at the end of the noun as opposed to
proclitic placed in front.

3.1 ABOUT GENDER

The divisions of gender in.English.language include the following: masculine, feminine,

neuter, animate and inanimate. .The gender allocation is.determined by the meaning of the.
words,  in Romanian there are only three gender markers: masculine, feminine and neuter.

The divisions of gender in English includes the following: masculine, feminine, neuter,
animate and inanimate.
Gender is determined by the meaning of the words. In Romanian there are only three
genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.
In English, some nouns denote no gender distinction such as dog, flower, pen, table,
chair, child, glass, car, roof and etc . These nouns are classified as inanimate denoting
objects.
e.g. The chair is under the table.
In Romanian the inanimate are neuter things as well, nevertheless there are some which
are considered masculine or feminine according to the inflections.
The gender is one of the most important grammatical category for the nominal flexion
while in English it is not so important.
A comparative approach of gender mark for the nouns in English and in Romanian
shows that the grammatical category of gender is a fundamental one for the nominal flexion
in Romanian while in English it is not of great importance. In both languages there are three
classes of nouns divided according to gender: masculine, feminine and neuter nouns.
The class of masculine nouns includes animates of male sex, both in Romanian and
English, and names of objects, inanimate, which according to tradition or through a logical
analogy are considered to be masculine, just in Romanian, not in English.
The class of feminine nouns includes names of being and animals of female sex, in both
languages, and names of objects, inanimate, which according to tradition or through a logical
analogy are considered to be feminine, just in Romanian.
The class of neuter nouns includes nouns denoting inanimate, in English and Romanian
and nouns having a generic or collective meaning referring to beings.
There could be distinguished three components in English or Romanian: neuter,
masculine and feminine. The classical definition of gender refers to elements content.
For example, in the case of nouns, the Romanian grammatical category corresponds to a
logical category of their content. Objects are, according to their nature, either masculine or
feminine, or of no sex. As a consequence, the traditional denominations given to the genders

27
in the Indo-European languages reflect the obvious connection settled between sex and
grammatical gender.
The content of the Romanian nouns gender is made of the opposition between masculine
and feminine, components of the animate, on one side, student / studentă and between these
and neuter, the representative of the inanimate, on the other side student / studentă / curs.
The Romanian linguists found various procedures of recognition of the noun gender,
starting from the feature of the Romanian neuter nouns to have masculine determiner for
singular and a feminine one for plural. This procedure consists of a determiner that
corresponds to a member of the masculine-feminine pair.
In English we cannot apply the method of gender determination presented above due to
the invariable character of most of parts of speech. Leon Levitchi states in his book
“Gramatica limbii engleze” that, there are a fourth gender in contemporary English, and these
are:
 Masculine. gender for masculine beings: boy, father, elephant;
 Feminine. gender. for feminine beings: girl, woman, she-wolf;
 Neuter. gender for objects, for everything that is inanimate and does not imply the
idea of sex: world, pace, house;
 Common. gender for both sexes: teacher, parent, child.
The common gender has the particularity of characterizing the nouns only when they
are seen out of a certain context, because when being in any context, they become either
masculine or feminine.
Our teacher gave us much homework.
The teacher. gave a few more examples because she wanted us to understand the rule.
In this sentence, the noun “teacher” is feminine as it results from the use of the personal
pronoun “she” as a replacement in the second sentence.
The opposition masculine-feminine corresponds to the difference of sex in very few
cases, especially the animate, particularly the names of person. This concordance between the
grammatical gender and the sex is not respected any more. Such nouns as “ministru” and
“ambassador” have got a form of feminine “ministră” and “ambasadoare” which is very
rarely used, the masculine form being preferred when rendering the idea of feminine as well
and in order to express the idea of feminine appellatives are placed in front of the noun
marking the feminine gender:
Doamna ministru va semna documentul azi.
Colloquial : Documentul va fi semnat azi de mninistră

Doamna Prim Ministru este în vizită în China.

Colloquial : Prim Ministra este plecată în China
In written press the feminine is used even ironically, whenever is a pamphlet or a
satirical article.

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 In Romanian, as well as in English, there are nouns with only one form either for
masculine or feminine gender. Words like: copac (eng. tree), hipopotam (eng.
hippopotamus), jaguar (eng. jaguar), șarpe (eng. snake) or rinocer (eng. rhino) as animate
nouns have only a masculine form while words like: masă (eng. table), lună (eng. moon),
lamă (eng. llama), girafă(eng. giraffe), hienă (eng. hyena), pumă (eng. mountain cat),
panteră (eng. panther) have only a feminine form.
Certain Romanian words are considered as feminine nouns although they denotes jobs
for men. We may give the following examples: ordonanţă (eng. statute), strajă (eng. guard),
santinelă (eng. sentinel).
Besides, there are masculine nouns also characterising both a male or a female:.
ascendent (eng. ancestor), descendent (eng. descendant)..
Este descendent al familiei ,,de Hohentzoler’’ .
(eng. He is a descendant of the 'Hohentzoler' family)

As for the classification of English nouns into masculines, feminines and neuters they are
classified into three groups: names of persons, names of animals and names of objects.
a) The gender of the nouns denoting persons:

Masculine Feminine
Boy Girl
Father Mother
King Queen
Gentlemen Lady
Man Woman

In Romanian the neuter nouns have the following forms:

- They have masculine forms in the singular.
E.g. scaun (eng. chair)
- They have feminine forms in the plural.
E.g. scaune (eng. chairs)

b) The gender of nouns denoting names of animals- in English is established considering

their size. Thus, big animals are considered masculine and they can be replaced by the
masculine pronoun “he”.

E.g. I see an elephant , she is huge !

I see an elephant, everybody agrees that he had an aquatic ancestor.

This young  mare done me proud today, but she's tuckered.

That  horse is coming from a different direction than the others, he looks completely
tired.

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 The nouns denoting small animals are considered as neuter nouns and they are replace by
“it”.
E.g. I saw a dog by the lake. It was big and unhappy.

The class of masculine nouns. includes animates of male sex, both in Romanian and
English, inanimates which according to tradition or considered to be masculine.
The class. of feminine nouns includes names of.human beings and animals of female sex
in both languages and inanimates which according to tradition or through a logical
analogy.are considered to be feminine. only in Romanian.
The class of neuter nouns includes nouns that denote inanimates in English and in
Romanian.

3.2 Misunderstood and mistranslated

There are several English nouns that are often confused in Romanian on the reason of
their similar pronunciation in English or a similar translation of the respective noun into
Romanian, even they don’t have the same written.
These examples prove the necessity of contextual translation to avoid misinterpretation
and therefore misunderstanding. Most of the times the phonetical representation is the only
one that eliminates semantic confusion.
STAFF / STUFF ( Ro. Personal / Lucruri )
[ staːf / stʌf ]
Their context:
They discuss all kinds of stuff. (Au vorbit despre tot felul de lucruri)
There’s some stuff I need. (Sunt câteva lucruri de care am nevoie)
We need more staff for security. (Avem nevoie de mai mult personal de securitate)
Highly motivated staff. (Personal foarte motivat)

DESERT / DESSERT (Ro. Deșert / Desert)

[ ˈdɛzət / dɪˈzɜːt]
Their context:
The Saharian desert is the largest desert in Africa (Deșertul Sahara este cel mai mare
din Africa)
I would like some chocolate cake to dessert. (Aș dori la desert tort de ciocolată)

SIGHT / SIDE / SIGH (Ro. Vedere / Parte / Suspin)

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 [ saɪt / saɪd / saɪ ]
Their context:
When she is upset she has a deep sigh. (Când este supărată are un suspin adânc)
The sight is amazing. (Vederea este uimitoare)
Turn the paper on the other side (Întoarce pagina pe partea cealaltă)

COUNTRY / COUNTY (Ro. Țară / Județ)

[ ˈkʌntrɪ / ˈkaʊntɪ ]
Their context:
This is a beautiful country. (Este o țară frumoasă)
Most of the county is rural but it also contains a large city. (Cea mai mare parte a
județului este rurală, dar conține și un oraș mare)

STORY / STOREY (Ro. Povestire / Etaj)

[ ˈstɔːrɪ / ˈstɔːrɪ ]
Their context:
The grandfather told his grandson a very interesting story. (Bunicul i-a spus nepotului o
poveste interesantă)
A story can by true or false. (O povestire poate fi adevărată sau falsă)
They had a five storey cake at their wedding. (Au avut un tort de cinci etaje la nunta lor)

WELFARE / WARFARE (Ro. Bunăstare / Război)

[ ˈwɛlˌfɛə / ˈwɔːˌfɛə ]
Their context:
I am worried about my children’s welfare. (Sunt îngrijorat de bunăstarea copiilor mei)
He lived on welfare for many years. (A trăit mulți ani în bunăstare)
I am worried about his physical welfare because he looks ill. (Sunt îngrijorat de
bunăstarea sa fizică pentru că arată rău)
Warfare is becoming increasingly technological. (Războiul devine din ce în ce mai
tehnologic)
There is a warfare between two neighbors. (Există un război între vecini)

IMPRUDENCE / IMPUDENCE (Ro. Imprudență / Obraznicie)

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 [ ɪmˈpruːdəns / ˈɪmpjʊdəns ]
Their context:
His imprudence caused him.
Impudence implies offensively behavior. (Impudența implică comportament ofensiv)
The child’s impudence upset his parents. (Obrăznicia copilului a supărat părinții)

FLOWER / FLOUR (Ro. Floare / Făină)

[ ˈflaʊə / ˈflaʊə ]
Their context:
This flower it smells very nice. (Această floare miroase foarte frumos.)
The cherry trees are in flower. (Cireșele sunt în floare.)
The girls are in the flower of youth. (Fetele sunt în floarea tinereții.)
In this pastry we use the best quality flour. (În această patiserie folosim făina de cea mai
bună calitate)
The flour is great for cakes but doesn’t have enough gluten for bread. (Făina este
grozavă pentru prăjituri, dar nu are suficientă gluten pentru pâine)

NICE / NIECE (Ro. Frumos / Nepoată)

[ nis/ niːs ]
Their context:
That nice man helped me to cross the street. (Omul acela drăguț ma ajutat să traversez
strada)
The weather is nice today. (Vremea este frumoasă azi.)
Nice to meet you. (Mă bucur să te cunosc)
Karen has a nice niece. (Karen are o nepoată frumoasă)
I am waiting for my niece. (Îmi aștept nepoata.)

ANT / AUNT (Ro. Furnică / Mătusă)

[ ænt/ aːnt ]
Their context:
The ant is a small creature. (Furnica este o mică creatură)
We are waiting for our aunt. (O așteptăm pe mătușa noastră)

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 Aunt Jenny lives in this city. (Mătușa Jenny locuiește în acest oraș)

CROW / CROWN / CROWD (Ro. Cioară / Coroană / Mulțime)

[ krəʊ / kraʊn /kraʊd ]
Their context:
The birds are scared about a crow. (Păsările sunt speriați despre ciori)
The rooster starts crowing. (Cocoșul începe să cânte.)
You should wear a crown! (Ar trebui să poarte o coroană!)
The circus act never failed to attract crowds of curious people. (Actul de circ nu a dat
greș nicodată să atragă mulțimi de oameni curioși.)
The performer attracted a small crowd. (Artistul a atras o mică mulțime)

SWEET / SUITE (Ro. Dulce (drăruț) / Apartament)

[ swiːt/ swiːt ]
Their context:
This cake is very sweet. (Prăjitura este foarte dulce.)
You have a very sweet dog! (Ai un caine foarte draguț)
This fountain delivers sweet water. (Această fântână oferă apă dulce.)
They reserved a suite in a very expensive hotel. (Ei au rezervat un apartament într-un
hotel foarte scump.)

3.3 Lexical.semantic.errors resulting. ,,Lexical novelties”

Some. English and. Romanian. words that have. similar. meanings and also. very similar
forms are often. mistaken. Based on the.perception of such semantic. equivalence in form, at
the same time, as a consequence of not.a solid. knowledge of the foreign language, learners.
sometimes produce. errors and than appear hybrid lexical. items that usually combine a
Romanian like. base form with an English bound inflectional. morpheme, either the plural
ending ,,–s”. or the past. participle particle ,,–ed.” such as.:

1. […] release the .chemicals and particulates in the atmosphere...

Ro. .particule ,,particles”.

2. The air. isn’t the only one that is. polluated..

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 Ro.. poluat .,,polluted”.

3. Millions of .hectares of ground .are devorated by cities..

Ro. a devora ,,devour”..

4. [.….] do not pay attention. on the avertisements..

Ro.. avertisment ,,warning”.

False friends or words, that have resembling forms, in the, two languages but ,differ in
meaning,, are also a source of errors.

,, combustible - flammable”.,

,, avidity -. eagerness”.

,, dispose, - inclined”.

,, advertisement. -.commercial on TV, radio, etc.”.

In the sentences given below, there are certain wrongly considered words to have the
same sense as the Romanian. Words. combustibil, aviditate, a dispune whose form is similar
to the English one but very different in meaning:

1. ,, [….] bought almost two bilion tones of combustible.”

Ro. .combustibil (noun) = any material. that .may be burnt,. fuel.

E. .combustible (adj.) = able to burn easily ;.

2. ,, This women. tend to .destroy the .source of their. life out of .ignorance,
avidity.”

Ro. ..aviditate = avarice;

E. .avidity = eagerness, enthusiasm

3. ,, [….] the population can dispose only of 1,2 per cent of the world water.”

Ro.. a dispune = to have at one’s disposal, to possess;

E.. dispose = to get. rid of, to remove

4. ,, There are a lot of advertisements even on the cigarette packages of smoking.”

Ro. .avertisment = warning,

E..advertisement = publicity

34
 There are also instances. when two English words correspond .to one Romanian word,
and this misleads learners: for example : ,,to make and to do” mean “a face.”, ,, to let and to
leave” mean “a lăsa”:

1. Every man could let a message (e g leave) : ,, Fiecare barbat poate lăsa un
mesaj.”

2. Some people blame others that have made them a bad thing (e g done sth. bad to
them). ,, Unii oameni ,ii cearta pe cei .care le-au făcut ceva rău .”

3.4 Countable and Uncountable nouns

In English and Romanian, the number is one of the grammatical categories according to
the noun that is defined and are countable and uncountable nouns.
There are also defective nouns of numbers, they have singular or only plural forms.
How to identify uncountable nouns
All common nouns fall into one of two sub-classes they may be either countable nouns
(sometimes known as unit or count nouns as boy - boys, dog - dogs, box - boxes or
uncountable nouns (sometimes known as mass or non-count nouns as absence, confidence,
fire, milk, food,oil , bread, butter, music, peace, air, love, etc
The same in Romanian are two classes countable masă - mese, fată - fete, apă - ape and
uncountable cinste, sete, ochelari, aplauze, lapte, icre, aur, zori, etc
The distinction between countable and uncountable nouns is fundamental in English, for
only by distinguishing between the two can we understand when to use singular or plural
forms and when to use the indefinite, definite and zero articles ,,a/an,, the and ,,0,, or the
appropriate quantifier a few, much, many, etc.
Unfortunately, we cannot always rely on common sense , using the idea of counting as a
guide to tell us when a noun is countable or uncountable.
For example, the noun information is uncountable in English, but its equivalent in
Romanian may refer to an item or items of information and will therefore be countable.
eg in English in Romanian
Luggage bagaj -bagaje
News știre - știri
Religion religie - religii
Oil ulei - uleiuri
Homework temă - teme
Metal metal - metale
Steam abur - aburi

35
 However, there are defectives of plural nouns the same words in both
languages :
eg English Romanian
Oxygen, Oxigen,
hair, păr,
milk, lapte,
gold, aur,
butter, unt,
trouser, pantaloni,
trainers, adidasi, etc
In both languages, if a noun is uncountable - we do not normally use ,, a/an, un/o,, in
front of it.
e g Sugar is expensive -Zaharul este scump
It does not normally have a plural and it can be used in the question ,,How much?”
- How much meat/oil? - Câta carne/ ulei ?
- A lot/ a kilo of meat! - Multă /un kilogram carne !
- A little/ some oil . - Puțin ulei/ niște ulei.
We cannot use a number ,, one, two” in front of it but we can use a quantifier in front of
the noun : ,, some, enough, a cup, a slice, a drop of..,little, a lot, etc.,,
The same in Romanian it’s used a quantifier ,, niște, suficient, o ceașcă, o felie de.., o
picătură de.., un pic, mult, etc,,
Concrete uncountable nouns, sometimes having physical but not 'individual'
existence,there are used in the same way in English and Romanian and include words like
Materials, liquids, gases : cotton, milk, air,
'Grains' and 'powder' : barley, rice, dust flour,
Activities : camping, drinking, eating, sailing
Languages : Arabic , Italian, Japanese, Turkish
Many uncountable nouns are abstract:
e.g. anger, equality, honesty, jealousy, guilt, education, freedom, healthy, humour,
imagination, lack, power,etc.
In both languages, nouns that have only singular numbers are called plural defective or
,,tantum singularias” hair, knowledge, water, help, silver,etc . This nouns in Romanian have
a word which is a plural but have a different mining
eg hair - sg. păr pl. peri (brush)

36
 knouledge - sg. cunoastință pl. cunoștințe (aquaintanceship)
water - sg. apă pl.ape ( rivers)
help - sg. ajutor pl. ajutoare (to serve, to give a hand of help)
silver - sg. argint pl. arginți ( money)
Just in English there are some count nouns have other differences between the singular
and plural forms not in Romanian
eg
bus buses
lady ladies
leaf leaves
man men
mouse mice
goose geese
ox oxen
foot feet
louse lice

37
In Romanian there is a series of multiple forms in plural, each form having another meaning.
Sg. Corn ( croissant ) 1.pl. Cornuri( croissats) 2. pl. Coarne ( bone formation)
Sg. Ochi ( eye ) 1.pl. Ochiuri (eyes) 2. pl. Ochiuri ( fried eggs )
Sg. Cap (head ) 1.pl. Capi (leaders ) 2.pl. Capete(anatomical organs )
Sg. Curent (tide, electricity) 1.pl. Curente (literary ideea) 2.pl. Curenti ( air muvement)
Sg. Masă (table) 1.pl. Mase (crowd) 2.pl. Mese ( tables)
Sg. Termen (term) 1.pl. Termene (terms) 2.pl.Termeni(part of an ecuation
Sg. Vis (dream) 1.pl. Vise(sweet dreams) 2.pl. Visuri (high ideals )

In English, the nouns terminated in "o" can form the plural in "s" or "oes". In Romanian
there aren’t two terminations which representing the plural of the same noun with the same
mining.
eg buffalo - buffalo / buffaloes
cargo - cargos / cargoes
mango - mangos / mangoes
ghetto - ghettos / ghettoes
flamingo - flamingos / flamingoes
mosquito - mosquitos / mosquitoes
In both languages there are many nouns borrowed from Latin and are the related words
eg English Romanian
aquarium acvariu
nucleus nucleu
spectrum spectru
larva larvă
stimulus stimul
vertebra vertebră
corpus corp
index index
3.5 Comparative and contrastive aspects of the nouns composed
in Romanian and English
Words can be combined to form a new word compound nouns. Word composition is a
way to form new words through semantic and grammatical union.
They normally have two parts, the first part tells us what kind of object or person it is, or
what its purpose is, the second part identifies the object or person in question. Compound
nouns often have a meaning that is different, or more specific, than the two separate words.
As in Romanian, in English, a compound noun is composed of more than one free
morpheme, there are used frequently and spelled as one word, as two words, or parts, with
 or without a hyphen.
e g In English :
- one word : policeman - polițist
boyfriend - prieten
typewriter - masina de scris
- two words : dining table - masă de sufragerie
passer-by - trecator
e g In Romanian :
- one word : radiocasetofon
videocameră
- two words : pierde-vară - loser
vagon de dormit - sleeping car
Turtă dulce - gingerbread
Rău făcător - offender
Ardei gras - red pepper
făt-frumos - charming prince
The English equivalents of the synonymous series do not correspond to the Romanian
lexical structure, being made up of different lexical components. The way of association with
the other nouns following a certain pattern, e g noun plus noun, preposition, verb, adjective,
In Romanian compounds are totally different from the English compound.
Compound noun can be formed in such way :
In English :
 noun + noun : bath-room - baie
living-room- sufragerie
bus-stop - stație de autobuz
 adjective + noun : full- moon - lună plină
black-berry- mură
high-way - autostradă
 noun + verb : rain-fall - ploaie torențială
 noun + preposition : passer-by - trecător
hanger-on - adept, urmaș, discipol
 noun + prepositional phrase :mother-in-law - soacră
father-in-law - socru
 noun + adjective : cup-ful - ceașcă plina
spoon-ful - lingură plină
 verb + noun : break-fast - mic dejun
 gerund + noun : dancing-shoes - pantofi de dans
frying pan - tigaie
boiling point - punct de fierbere
walking stick - baston

It must be underlined that, when ,, -ing +noun” is a compound noun, only the ,,-ing” form
is stressed ( e g ‘parking area), while when it is not a compound noun, but a noun preceded by
a Present Participle, both parts are stressed : eg ‘running’water, ‘dancing’bear

The way of composing nouns in Romanian, is divided into three main classes :
- A Synonyms (couples or synonymous series) substantive phrases that have lexical
components completely similar.
- B Synonyms (couples or synonymous series) substantive phrases that have partially similar
lexical components
- C Synonyms (couples or synonymous series) substantive phrases that have different lexical
components
A class
 noun in the case of the nominative + noun in the genitive case
eg pocitania pamântului - a fright of a man
iarba dracului - Devil’s weed
valea plângerii - the veil of tears or the vale of woe
floarea soarelui - sun flower
miezul nopții - midnight
 noun in the case of the nominative + adjective
eg lună nouă - new moon( that mean round moon, full moon)
noapte albă - white night
sânge rece - cold blood
 noun in the case of the nominative + preposition +numeral +noun
eg sabie cu două tăișuri
băț cu două capete
 In English this structure is i the following form ,, numeral +adjective +noun,,
eg double edged sword
double ended stick
 noun in the case of the nominative + preposition + the accusative noun
eg drum de fier - railway
floare de colț - plant
gură de lup - malformation
ochi de pisică - mineral
baie de sânge - blood bath
 Noun in the case of nominative accusative +preposition + noun
eg copil din flori - bastard
linie de mijloc - middle line, dividing line
cale de mijloc - golden mean
ochi de vultur - sharp eye
 There is an equivalent in English for this compound nouns but they have other grammar
structure ,, accusative noun + nominative noun,, without preposition.
 Noun in nominative + preposition + noun in accusative
eg concurs de imprejurări
This structure can also be seen in English ,, combination of circumstances”
B class
 Noun in nominativ + adjective
eg argint viu - Mercury
cal turtit - dragonfly
coate goale - poor man
făt frumos - young man and charming
 Adjective + noun
eg bunăstare - prosperity
dreptunghi - rectangle
lungmetraj - feature film
primăvară - Spring

 Proper noun + common noun

eg Mereni de sus
Bolintin vale
 Domnesti târg
C clas
 Pronoun + noun
eg in ultimul ceas - the last hour
Prim-balerină - prima ballerina
Prim-solist - front soloist
celălalt tărâm - the other realm
prefață - foreward