Animate and inanimate names. Animate and inanimate nouns: examples of words

How do you determine whether a noun is animate or inanimate?

An animate noun is one that has a living component.

For example: man, hare, grasshopper, etc. (therefore the question is asked who?).

An inanimate noun is one that does not have a living component.

For example: table, house, car, etc. (so the question is asked what?).

In general, we intuitively, knowing the language well, can define most words without rules. But there is still a rule that will help distinguish an animate noun from an inanimate one. So, for example, let's take two words for comparison: corpse and dead man. They must be put in the plural first in the genitive case, and then in the accusative case. If they are the same, then the word is animate. R.p. dead bodies, corpses. V.p. dead people, corpses. It turns out that a dead person is animate, but a corpse is inanimate

If a noun answers the question Who?, then it is animate. For example, a person, a cat, a bird, a girl. If a noun answers the question What?, then it is inanimate. For example, a house, a tree, a city.

For schoolchildren this is often a big problem. But there is no difficulty here. The first thing to do to determine whether a noun is animate or not is to ask a question. For example: who is a person, a fox, a dog; what - a flower, a forest, a sky. All nouns that answer the question who are animate, and those that answer the question what are inanimate.

In elementary school, children are taught a simplified rule: What question does this noun answer? To whom or what?

And children intuitively divide everything around into animate and inanimate.

But in higher grades one comes to understand that there is more complex cases this rule. Do plants have a soul: a flower, a bush, a tree? After all, they breathe, grow, get sick like us, die... that is. alive, but why then are they inanimate? But the soul has already left the dead man, but he is still animated?

That’s when the plural genitive and accusative cases help. If the words match, we have an animate object in front of us.

To determine whether a noun is animate or inanimate, just ask a question. Answers the question Who? - animate noun, answers the question What? - inanimate noun. For example,

dog - Who?

pillar - What?

Questions will help us with this. Animate nouns include all living beings and the question is asked who?. For example, fox, human, hedgehog, hippopotamus, etc.

Inanimate nouns are objects and answer the question what??. An example is a large set, a stool, a table, a chair, a floor, a ceiling, a lamp.

The simplest example that was drilled into us from school is to ask a question about a word, and if it turns out that the word answers who? we attribute it to the living (animate), and what if for what? to the non-living (inanimate). Later, the following rule was added: take a noun and present it as the genitive case in the plural, and then compare it with the accusative case, also in the plural. If you see the same word in form, it means it is animate. If not, on the contrary, it is inanimate.

The nouns dead, deceased are animate, and corpse is inanimate. How to determine this? All you need to do is put the noun in the genitive plural form and the accusative plural form. If these forms coincide, we have an animate noun.

No dead people = see dead people

No dead people = I see dead people

But there are no corpses, I see corpses.

Using this formula Rod.p.pl.h. = Vin.p. pl. h., we will accurately identify an animate or inanimate noun. Inanimate nouns have the same forms of the nominative plural case and the accusative plural case.

I.p.what? chamomile = vin.p. see what? daisies

On the issue. Animate answers the question who, inanimate what

At school we were taught very simply to distinguish animate and inanimate nouns from each other. All living things are animate nouns (for example, man, astronaut, cat, dog, professor, and so on). These nouns answer the question WHO?.

And everything inanimate is inanimate nouns (for example, table, chair, apple, weather, and so on). These nouns answer the question What?.

More from primary school you have an idea of living and inanimate nature. Nouns also name objects of living and inanimate nature. And nouns are divided into animate and inanimate. But it's not that simple. Many interesting linguistic discoveries await you as you learn to distinguish animate nouns from inanimate ones.

All common nouns in the Russian language are divided into two categories: animate and inanimate. Animate nouns answer the question “who?”, and inanimate nouns answer the question “what?”

For example, "who?" - boy, dog, bird; "What?" - book, stone, earth.

1. Category of animation - inanimateness - grammatical category

It seems that everything is simple: the category of animateness - inanimateness is based on the distinction between living and inanimate. However, in the Russian language there are often cases when grammar contradicts common sense. Suffice it to remember the synonyms dead body And dead man.

The noun "corpse" is inanimate, and the noun "dead" is animate. The difference is found only in the form of V.p. units: I see a dead man - I see a corpse, cf.: I see an elephant - I see a chair.

Animate nouns have the same plural forms V.p. and R.p. (and for nouns m.p. of the 2nd declension and forms V.p. and R.p. singular), but for inanimate ones - not. Inanimate nouns have the same I.p. forms. and V.p. plural.

I see (who?) elephants, but there are no (who?) elephants; I see (who?) mice, but there are no (who?) mice.

I see (what?) books, no (what?) books; I see (what?) at homé, there are no (what?) houses.

Animate nouns include the names of people, animals, insects, etc., that is, living beings. Inanimate nouns are the names of objects, phenomena of reality that are not classified as living beings.

2. Please pay attention

Note:

names of chess and card pieces and nouns “dead”, “dead”, as well as names of dolls ( parsley, puppet) and the word “doll” itself are animate nouns;
and words that name a collection of living beings: army, people, crowd, flock, students, humanity etc. are inanimate nouns.

Basically, animate nouns include masculine and feminine nouns. There are few animate neuter nouns in the Russian language. This includes several nouns with the suffix -ishe ( monster, bogeyman), individual nouns (formed from adjectives or participles): mammal, insect, animal And

nouns child, face(meaning “person”).

3. Common mistakes

Errors in the use of the category of animation - inanimate nouns can be divided into two groups:

First- using inanimate nouns as animate ones, for example: Everyone looked at him like he was ghost. Let's check using the formula “V.p. plural = R.p. plural": (I see) ghosts- (No) ghosts. The endings don't match, so it's a noun ghost - inanimate, therefore the sentence, according to the grammatical norms of the Russian language, should look like this: Everyone looked at him like he was ghost.

Second- using animate nouns as inanimate ones. For example: When he carried securities, he was given two people to accompany him. Right: When he was carrying securities, they gave him a guidetwo people.

Remember: in constructions with compound numerals ending in two three four, V.p. the numeral retains the form Imp.p., regardless of the category of animation. For example: The driver needed to deliver twenty three athlete.

Bibliography

Russian language. 6th grade / Baranov M.T. and others - M.: Education, 2008.
Babaytseva V.V., Chesnokova L.D. Russian language. Theory. 5-9 grades - M.: Bustard, 2008.
Russian language. 6th grade / Ed. MM. Razumovskaya, P.A. Lekanta. - M.: Bustard, 2010.

Terver.ru ().
Hi-edu.ru ().

Homework

Exercise 1.

Write the words in 2 columns - animate nouns and inanimate nouns:

Creature, janitor, monster, tin, journalism, youth, insect, engine, coal, corpse, warmth, stubbornness, student, hazel grouse, mushroom, doll, peddler, midges, foot soldier, spirit, Sakhalin, kids, squad, steel, coal, poverty, cap, infantry, small fry, general, herd, canned food, table, larva, aluminum, snake, red tape, crow, fox, humanity, relatives, boyar, Karakum, horse, young animals, genius, youth, bell, milk, chick, silk, stuffed animal, pea, tentacle, peas, comrade, cooking, oil, dishes, cement, poor, relative, sugar, tea, honey, teapot, yeast, tea leaves, herd, whiteness, pity, stubborn, hero, furniture, radiance, delight, heroism, running, journalist, walking, pearls, generality, pearl, freshness, crow.

Exercise No. 2

Read the fairy tale by L. Uspensky:

A raft is floating along the river. A fat lazy cat sits motionless on the shore. The raft asks the cat:

Are you alive?

How can you prove it?

I'm moving.

I'm swimming and you're sitting.

If I want, I will move.

I am a great raft, alive, and cats are inanimate. You are a thing, and I exist.

The cat thought and said:

I will prove to you grammatically exactly who is who and what is what. I will kill you in the accusative case. Your nominative cannot resist my accusative.

Help the cat, prove that he is right. Using the elements of an argumentative essay, complete the fairy tale.

In the Russian language there is a concept of animation. To put it figuratively, from the point of view of the Russian language, some objects are more alive than others. This state of affairs may seem strange, but let's try to figure it out and first consider the term. If you are already familiar with word formation in Russian, you can easily find the root beautiful word"animation". Root -soul-. Similar words: soul, soulful.

The soul is life. Animate nouns denote those objects in which there is life, pulse, breath. For example. A person, a child, a cat, a bird are biologically living objects, therefore, they are animate. Student, musician, librarian, politician (although many argue with this fact) are also animate nouns. Dolphin, bear, parrot - animate.
Table, coffee, trees, city, brick are inanimate nouns.

For animate nouns we ask the question “who?” (who? to whom? by whom?)

- I heard the door slam. Who is this?
- Mom came.

For inanimate nouns we ask the question “what?” (what? what? what?)

Knowledge about the animate and inanimate nature of nouns helps to understand the cases of the Russian language. To determine case, we usually put questions to nouns.

Nominative- Who? What? - boy, book
A boy rides a bicycle, a book lies on the table.

Genitive case - whom? what? - boy, books
The boy is not at home, no one cares about the book.

Dative case - to whom? what? - boy, book
The boy is not interested in reading, and the book must be very boring.

Accusative - whom? What? - boy, book
The bright cover attracted the boy, he drew attention to the book.

Creative - by whom? how? - boy, book
This had never happened to the boy before - he was completely captivated by the book.

Prepositional - about whom? about what? - about a boy, about a book
In the story about a boy and a book, many recognize themselves as children.

As you can see, the difference between the genitive and accusative cases, which are often confused, is immediately visible.

The main thing worth remembering about the concept of animacy is that in living speech, animateness and inanimateness approximately coincide with the concepts of living and inanimate.

Looking at a bird sitting on a branch, we say:
- Who is this?
- This is a finch.

Or about a fish that swims in the river:
- Who is this?
- This is trout.

At the same time, animals that have moved from the category of living beings to the category of, say, food, will become inanimate, and the same trout will no longer become “who”, but “what”:
- What kind of fish is in the refrigerator?
- This is trout.

There are not many exceptions when inanimate objects are classified as animate. Here they are.

The nouns "dead" and "dead" (historically this is associated with the belief in afterlife); however, their synonym noun "corpse" refers to inanimate;

Chess pieces: rook, queen, pawn and others; they “walk” and “beat”, the names of their actions can be correlated with the actions of living objects, so they also answer the question “who”;

The same goes for dolls and toys, since they imitate living, animate objects.

On this topic I would like to add something regarding grammar. For animate nouns, the accusative plural form coincides with the genitive plural form. And for inanimate nouns, this form, that is, the accusative plural form, coincides with the nominative case form. You can take any animate or inanimate nouns and practice the cases using the questions in the middle of this article.

Animate nouns include names of persons and animals: man, daughter, son, Vera, Petrov, Dima, duty officer, cow, goat, goose, starling, carp, spider etc. These are mostly masculine and feminine nouns. Neuter nouns are few in number: child, creature (in meaning “living organism”), face (meaning “person”), words in -ishche (monster, monster), substantivized adjectives and participles ( animal, insect, mammal). The ability of the “objects” they call to independently move and move, which inanimate objects do not possess, is often noted as a defining feature of animate nouns.

This semantic classification does not coincide with the scientific division of everything that exists in nature into living and nonliving: in the natural sciences, plants are also classified as living. It also does not fit into the framework of the “everyday” understanding of living and nonliving things. Thus, animate nouns include the words dead man, deceased, seemingly contrary to logic. Boiled duck and roast goose are also animate in grammar. This also includes a doll, a ball (in the language of billiard players), ace, trump, jack etc. - words that have nothing to do with the living world. The category of inanimate includes nouns denoting a collection of living beings ( people, crowd, platoon, flock, swarm, group etc.), as well as collective nouns like youth, peasantry, children, proletariat etc., denoting a collection of persons.

The division of nouns into animate and inanimate is built not only on semantic grounds, but also on
grammatical. Accusative plural
in animate nouns it coincides with the genitive, and
in inanimate - with the nominative. Wed:
I see trees, mountains, rivers, clouds, I see people, cows, birds,
flocks of insects, geese, I will buy cucumbers, notebooks, buttons, I will buy sheep, pigeons, dolls, I ate tangerines, oranges, ate chicken, crayfish, they served fried eggplants, they served fried partridges.

In the singular, the distinction between animate and inanimate nouns is consistently expressed morphologically in masculine words. Compare: inanimate nouns and animate nouns I’ll make soup, broth, I’ll cook a goose, a rooster, we’ll see off the steamer, we’ll see off a friend, plant potatoes, plant a guest.

The exception is masculine words ending in -a. In them, like in feminine nouns, the accusative case does not coincide with either the genitive or the nominative. Wed: I. - boy, girl; R. - boys, girls; IN. - boy, girl.

In animate nouns of the neuter gender, as in inanimate nouns, in the singular the form of the accusative case coincides with the form of the im. case. For example: Oh, how I love this empty creature! - Pavel Petrovich groaned(Turgenev). The same is observed for feminine nouns with a zero ending in them. case: I see a lynx, a mouse.

A deviation from the basic norm of expressing the meaning of animation is the formation of wine forms. pad. pl. h. with the preposition in nouns - names of persons expressing an attitude towards a certain social group: student, nanny, livestock breeder, etc. In constructions with the meaning “to become (do) who,” these words form the form of wines. case as inanimate nouns: promoted to general, elected to academician, joined as a janitor, joined the partisans, candidate for deputy and so on.

The names of microorganisms fluctuate between animate and inanimate nouns: microbe, bacillus, ciliates, bacterium, amoeba etc. They have two forms of the accusative case: study microbes and germs; examine viruses and viruses under a microscope; destroy bacilli and bacilli. IN professional language such words are usually used as animate nouns, and in the non-professional sphere as inanimate.

The same noun in one meaning can refer to animate things, and in another to inanimate ones. Thus, the names of fish in direct meanings are animate nouns ( catch crucian carp). When used as names of foods, they act as inanimate nouns: there are sprats, invite for trout etc. Wed. Also: I see a huge stump And I see this stump (who?) every day.

Animacy/inanimateness in words is manifested in a peculiar way dunce, idol, idol, graven image and others, which figuratively designate people. In the meaning of “statue” these words clearly gravitate toward inanimate ones, and in figurative meaning persons - to animate nouns. True, this feature is expressed inconsistently. Wed: set up an idol and it is difficult to convince this idol, But: On the banks of the Danube, the Russians placed a wooden idol (A.N. Tolstoy); From shaving his beard, he creates an idol for himself (Saltykov-Shedrin) and... makes an idol out of this old useless man (L. Tolstoy).

Titles works of art according to their heroes they act as animate nouns. Wed: get to know Eugene Onegin and listen to “Eugene Onegin”; call Rudin and read “Rudin” and so on.

Wed. Also: treated a Muscovite and bought a “Moskvich”, feed a horse and sculpt a horse, but feed a crocodile and buy a “Crocodile”; see a kite, fly a kite and make a kite.

The names of the ancient gods are animate nouns, and the names of the luminaries homonymous with them are inanimate: anger Mars and look at Mars, honor Jupiter and see Jupiter and etc.

The words type, image, character, which are the names of the characters in works of art, are used as inanimate nouns: create a strong character; characterize negative types and positive images. Wed: transfer characters novel, fairy tale characters, fable characters, But: bring out the comic character.

The purpose of the lesson:

to develop knowledge and skills to distinguish animate nouns from inanimate ones,
study the peculiarities of declension of animate and inanimate nouns,
remember words that are inanimate in Russian.

Lesson type:

Educational and upbringing.

Nouns are divided into two categories according to the type of objects they denote: animate nouns and inanimate nouns.

Animate nouns necessary to designate all living beings - people, birds, animals, insects And fish. Animate nouns answer the question “ Who?" - mother, father, dog, cuckoo, crucian carp, caterpillar, mosquito.

Mostly animate nouns are male And female(child, girl, soldier, fish, frog, etc.).

Animate nouns are rare neuter(animal, child, insect, monster, monster, etc.)

Exercise: Listen to “The Vodyanoy’s Song.” Name the animate nouns that you heard in the song.

Since in grammar and in scientific idea alive and dead nature The criteria for animate or inanimate differ; animate nouns also include:

names or nicknames of fairy-tale characters, myths and legends (Baba Yaga, Koschey, ghost, pegasus, centaur, cyclops, etc.)

names of children's toys (bear, car, doll, tumbler)

names of card suits of figures (king, jack, queen)
titles chess pieces(queen, bishop, tour, knight, etc.)

Exercise: watch the sound film strip “Fly-Tsokotukha”, pay attention to which letter the names of the characters are written: Fly-Tsokotukha, Grandmother-Bee, etc. Name all the participants in the fairy tale whose name is written with a capital letter, explain why.

Inanimate nouns necessary to designate all objects and phenomena occurring in reality that do not belong to living nature. Inanimate nouns answer the question “ What?" - snow, rain, door, darkness, laughter.

Inanimate also include collective names for sets of living beings: army, people, herd, flock, swarm and names plants: chamomile, cornflower, oak, coltsfoot, aspen, boletus.

You should know that when writing the names of plants, words are used that are quite familiar to living beings - plants “breathe,” “bloom,” “reproduce,” “are born,” and “die,” but do not move.

However, attention should be paid to cases in which it is necessary to clearly understand the differences between animate and inanimate nouns. For example, the nouns squad, group, class (denote a collection of people), but nevertheless are inanimate nouns. Or the noun microbe - in biology, a microbe is a living creature, but in grammar, a microbe is an inanimate noun.

Exercise: Listen to “The Pirate Song.” What type of nouns do the words “pirates”, “darlings”, “robbers”, “murderers” belong to? Name similar words that belong to this category.

Features of the declension of animate and inanimate nouns

To grammatically divide nouns into animate and inanimate, it is necessary to take into account the features declination :

The form of the accusative case coincides with the form of the genitive case:

animate nouns have plural forms.

Example: Genitive case (plural) – no (who?) – guys, queens, crucian carp, girls, forty, dolls = Accusative case (plural) – I see (who?) - guys, queens, crucian carp, girls, forty, dolls) .

Example: Accusative ( singular) – saw (who?) a dead man = Genitive case (singular) – there was no (who?) dead man.

Accusative case (singular) - I see (who?) father = Genitive case (singular) - there was no (who?) father..

The form of the accusative case coincides with the form of the nominative case:

inanimate nouns have plural forms.

Example: Accusative (plural) – I see (what?) – curls, jars, canned food = Nominative (plural) – there is (what?) - curls, jars, canned food

animate nouns (masculine 2nd declension) have a singular number.

Example: Accusative case (singular) – saw (what?) a stone = Nominative case (singular) – there is (what?) a stone here.

Accusative case (singular) - saw (what?) a corpse = Nominative case (singular) - there is (what?) a corpse here.

Bewitched by the invisible

The forest slumbers under the fairy tale of sleep.

Like a white scarf

The pine tree has tied up.

Bent over like an old lady

Leaned on a stick

And right under the top of my head,

A woodpecker is hitting a branch.

S. Yesenin.

Exercise. Listen to the tongue twister. Which nouns are animate and which are not?

Patter:

The mouse dried the dryers,

The mouse invited the mice.

The mice began to eat dry food,

The teeth were immediately broken.

Exercise. Answer the questions:

"Living and non-living questions"

Who's flying? What flies?

Who's drumming on the roof? What's drumming on the roof?

Who's swimming? What floats?

Who is silent? What is silent?

Who goes underwater? What goes underwater?

Who's hissing? What's hissing?

Questions to consolidate a new topic:

Question answered by animate nouns?

Question answered by inanimate nouns?

Does the animate-inanimate nature of nouns always coincide with the object’s belonging to living (inanimate) nature?

- Is “Pinocchio” an animate or inanimate noun?

Which noun refers to: “dead man”, “people”, “squad”?

Homework:

Exercise: write down the words in 2 columns - animate nouns and inanimate nouns:

larva, aluminum, snake, red tape, crow, fox, humanity, relatives, boyar, Karakum, horse, young, genius, youth, bell, milk, chick, silk, stuffed animal, pea, tentacle, pea, comrade, cooking, oil, dishes, cement, poor, relative, sugar, tea, honey, kettle, yeast, tea leaves, herd, whiteness, pity, stubborn, hero, furniture, radiance, delight, heroism, running, journalist, walking, pearls, generals, pearl, freshness, crow.

List of used literature:

Malykhina E.V., Russian language, Geneza, 2008.

L.A. Akhremenkova “Towards the top five step by step”, M., Prosveshchenie, 2008.

Baranova M.T. "Russian language. 6th grade", M. Prosveshchenie, 2008.

Lesson on the topic: “Noun”, Bogdanova G.A., Moscow

Lesson on the topic: “Animate and inanimate nouns”, Kunina L.V., Rozhdestvenskaya Secondary School

Lesson on the topic: “Animate and inanimate nouns”, Ayvazyan N.V., Secondary School No. 4, Meleuz, Republic of Bashkortostan

Lesson on the topic: “Animate and inanimate nouns”, Babchenko T.V. Municipal educational institution secondary school No. 4, Tatarsk, Novosibirsk region.

Edited and sent by A.A. Litvin

We worked on the lesson

Bogdanova G.A.

Ayvazyan N. V.

Kunina L.V.

Babchenko T.V.

Litvin A.A.

Ask a question about modern education, express an idea or solve a pressing problem, you can Educational forum, where an educational council of fresh thought and action meets internationally. Having created blog, You will not only increase your status as a competent teacher, but also make a significant contribution to the development of the school of the future. Guild of Educational Leaders opens doors to top-ranking specialists and invites them to cooperate in creating the best schools in the world.

Subjects > Russian language > Russian language 6th grade