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PECULIARITIES OF NOUNS IN FRENCH LANGUAGE
Nilufar Juraeva
Assistant professor, PhD
French Philology Department
Bukhara State University
Shodmonova Barchinoy
Student of Bukhara State University
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14937501
Annotation:
A noun is an independent part of speech that denotes an
object, person or phenomenon and answers the questions “who?” “what?” or
“where?”. A noun is an important word class in any language, including French.
This article discusses the specific features of nouns in French.
Keywords:
noun,
animate and inanimate objects, proper noun, common
noun, definite noun, abstract noun, countable nouns, uncountable noun, simple
noun, complex noun, grammatical category, number category, singular, plural,
masculine, feminine.
Introduction.
A word group that denotes the names of animate and
inanimate objects, actions, qualities, abstract concepts is called a noun. A noun is
a label for places, things, and concepts. In French language nouns may be
categorised:
common or proper
counting or mass
singular (sg.) or plural (pl.),
masculine (m.) or feminine (f.).
It is important to recognise the gender and the number of a noun. These
properties affect the form of the determiner, pronouns, and
adjectival/participial agreement. Thus, most of time French nouns are preceded
by a determiner. For example: C’est la vie! That’s life! The construction: *C’est
vie is not possible in French. The most common determiners are articles,
appearing before the noun, (e.g., la vie) and indicate definiteness. La introduces
a feminine and singular noun. French articles change form to agree in gender
and number with the noun. There is also a contracted form used before words
starting with a vowel and most words beginning with “h”.
Singular plural
Singular plural
Masculine
Le
Les
Feminine
La
Les
Before vowel or h
L’
Les
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Some examples of noun with their corresponding definite article
Le garçon/les garçons the boy(s)
la fille/les filles the girl(s)
L’appartement/les appartements the flat(s)
L’université/les universités the universitie(s)
Main part.
In this article, we will discuss the peculiarities of the nouns,
such as gender and number categories in the French language.
Nouns in French can be divided into the following types:
1. Names of animate and inanimate objects: fille, chien, livre, table;
2. Proper nouns: Jacques, Paul, Paris, Seine, Tashkent and common nouns:
garçon, ville, rivière, fenêtre;
3. Definite nouns: crayon, porte, clé, table and abstract nouns: patience,
amour, sourire, peur, amitié;
4. Nouns denoting a person and an object: enfant, feuille, papier and
collective nouns: foule, groupe, feuillage;
5. Countable nouns: cahier, pomme, allumettes and uncountable nouns.
Uncountable nouns are, in turn, divided into nouns denoting objects: eau, sucre,
farine, viande and abstract nouns: force, patience, musique.
6. Simple nouns: plume, garde, stylo, porte and complex nouns: porte-
plume, avant-garde.
Gender.
Every French noun has a gender, either masculine (m) or feminine
(f). All people, places or things are either masculine or feminine and it is easier
to learn the French noun with its gender. It is important to know a noun’s
gender because every time we use an adjective with a noun, we might need to
change its spelling if the noun is feminine or plural. If we don’t know the gender
of a word, we can look it up in a dictionary or online. There are some clues which
will help to remember the gender of a noun.
Masculine gender
. There are few general patterns and rules that help to
identify the gender and number of French nouns.
Common endings:
A) Nouns ending in -é, -er, -ier
→
Le café (the coffee), l’atelier (the studio),
le dîner (the lunch)…
B) Nouns ending in -ent
→
document (the document), le moment (the
moment), L’appartement (the appartment)
C) Nouns ending in -isme
→
Le socialisme (the socialism), le capitalisme
(the capitalism), le nihilisme ( the nihilism)…
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D) Nouns ending in -eau, -o, -eu
→
Le cerveau (the brain), le vélo (the
bicycle), le jeu (the game) …
E) Most compond nouns
→
Le tire-bouchon (the corkscrew), le pique-nique
(the picnic), le passe-temps (the pastime) …
In French language all weekdays, seasons and languages are masculine.
Masculine number. The plural form of nouns.
To form the regular plural,
add -s to the end of the noun:
L’étudiant/Les étudiants the student(s)
Irregular nouns and compound nouns have different rules. When a noun
ends in -s, -x or -z, there is no difference between the singular and plural
forms:
Le bras/Les bras the arm(s)
Le gaz/Les gaz the gaz/gases
Le prix/Les prix the price(s)
Irregular patterns:
Ending
Singular
Plural
Translation
-ail
Le travail
Les travaux
Work, job(s)
-al
Le journal
Les journaux
Newspaper(s)
-eau
Le cadeau
Les cadeaux
Present(s)
-eu
Le jeu Les jeux
game(s)
Le jeu Les jeux
game(s)
Le jeu Les jeux
game(s)
-ou
Le bijou
Les bijoux
Jewel(s)
Feminine gender.
Common endings:
A) Nouns ending in -ure or -ue
→
La culture (the culture), la voiture (the
car), la rue (the street), l’aventure (the adventure)…
B) Nouns ending in -tion or -(s)sion
→
La passion (the passion), la
dissertation (the essay), l’émotion (the emotion), la nation (the nation)…
C) Nouns ending in -ée
→
La matinée (morning), la journée (day), la soirée
(evening), l’idée (idea)…
D) Most common nouns ending in -té
→
La clarté (clarity), la médiocrité
(mediocrity), la santé (health), la pauvreté (poverty) …
E) Most nouns ending in -ie
→
La pluie (rain), la pâtisserie (pastry shop),
la pharmacie ( pharmacy), l’académie (academy) …
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F) Nouns ending in -ance
→
La méfiance (distrust), l’arrogance (arrogance),
la chance (chance), la vengeance (revenge)…
G) Most nouns ending in -ence
→
La préférence (preference), l’absence
(absence), la patience (patience), la conférence (conference)…
H) Most nouns ending in -eur
→
La peur (fear), la couleur (colour),
la grandeur (size), l’erreur (mistake) etc…
I) Most nouns ending in a double consonant followed by -e
→
La ville
(the city), la couronne (the crown), la famille (the family), l’adresse (address)…
In general, sciences are feminine except Le droit (law):
In French
Translation
L’anthropologie
Anthropology
La biologie
Biology
La chimie
Chemistry
La géographie
Geography
La linguistique
Linguistics
La médecine
Medecine
La physique
Physics
La politique
Politics
…
…
In all these cases, the plural is formed by adding -s to the noun:
L’étudiante → les étudiantes
La directrice → les directrices
La danseuse → les danseuses
Conclusion.
Nouns play an important role in expressing the name of the
subject. As it is known, the concept of gender exists in the French language. In
French, nouns are divided into two: le masculin and le féminin. In dictionaries,
they are abbreviated as m and f. In French, there are a number of nouns that can
belong to both genders, but they are fundamentally different from each other in
meaning. A deep study of the specific grammatical and semantic aspects of
nouns will help to better understand their role and significance in the language
system.
References:
1.
Н. А. Баскаков, Каракалпакский язык, II часть, 1952. – Б. 301.
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grammatikasi. – T.: “Fan texnologiya”, 2015. – B.34
3.
Ona tili (morfologiya): o‘quv qo‘llanma / U. Amonov. – Buxoro: “Sadriddin
Salim Buxoriy” Durdona, 2021. – B. 216.
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