General nouns in Russian form a special group. Its definition is based on the grammatical uniqueness of words, which is based on a change of gender depending on the gender of the specified person.
Gender nouns
In total, there are 4 genders in nouns in the Russian language: general gender, middle, male and female. The last three are easy to identify by the end or semantic context. But what if the word can mean immediately both male and female? Such a problem occurs with the words “badass”, “cunning”, “rogue”, “miserable”, “impatient”, “drowsy”, “mediocrity”, “non-human”, “haste”, “pig”, “bull’s”, gender which may vary.
It is traditionally believed that in the Russian language there are only three genera, they include male, female and middle. To determine the gender of some common words, it was customary to refer to the context. The names of professions, for example, are divided into parallel names: seller-saleswoman, teacher-teacher, schoolboy-schoolgirl, aviator-pilot, cook-cook, writer-writer, athlete-athlete, supervisor-leader. At the same time, in official documents women are more often used the masculine gender of these words. And there are examples of general nouns designated exclusively by masculine gender: gynecologist, lawyer, linguist, philologist, correspondent, ambassador, academician, judge, host, surgeon, doctor, therapist, paramedic, master, courier, curator, appraiser, insurer, diplomat, politician, employee, specialist, employee. Now there is a tendency to attribute such words to a common gender, since they can be applied to both men and women.
Ambiguity
Disputes over the recognition of the existence of a general kind have been going on since the 17th century. Then similar words were mentioned in the grammars of Zizan and Smotritsky. Lomonosov singled out such nouns, indicating their formal characteristics. Later, researchers began to doubt their existence, defining such nouns as words with alternating gender, depending on the implied.
So to this day opinions are divided, some scholars consider nouns of a general gender in Russian as separate homonymous words of different genders, and the other recognizes them in a separate group.
Surnames
To the words of a general kind, some non-declining surnames of foreign origin and Russian surnames in -o-s / them can be added. Sagan, Depardieu, Renault, Rabelais, Dumas, Verdi, Morois, Hugo, Defier, Michonne, Tussauds, Picasso and others. All these are examples of general nouns among foreign surnames. Among Slavic surnames of a general kind are often found: Tkachenko, Yurchenko, Nesterenko, Prokhorenko, Chernykh, Makarenko, Ravensky, Kucherenko, Dolgikh, Savchenko, Sedykh, Kutsykh and others.
Nationalities
The names of some nationalities are defined as words of a general kind. These include: Khanty, Mansi, Quechua, Komi, Gujarati, hezhe, Mari, Sami. The fact is that the "Mari" and the "Mari" already exist, but the word "Mari" will be common to the whole nationality or nationality.
By the same principle, the names of the breeds (sivivka, okapi, bulanka), as well as representatives of groups (vis-a-vis) are added to the general genus.
Informal proper names
In addition to surnames, there is an interesting separate category of proper names related to the topic of the article. These are abbreviations of official names, which are often confused when determining sex.
The name "Sasha" can belong to both Alexandra and Alexander, and the name "Valya" is used to name both the girl Valentina and the boy Valentine. Such names also include “Zhenya” from Eugene and Eugenia, “Glory” from Yaroslav and Yaroslav, Vladislav and Vladislav, “Vasya” from Vasily and Vasilisa.
Evaluative, characterizing words
However, for the first time on the existence of common nouns, the question arose because of evaluative words affecting the character or traits of a person. In direct speech, using them can be more difficult to track the gender of the recipient of a replica, for example: "You are a badass!" Here the word "badass" can be addressed to both female and male. These include the words of the general kind "bullie", "rogue", "clever", "well done", "tramp", "egoza", "cripple", "stinker", "dylda", "malyavka", " disheveled. "
In fact, there are a lot of similar assessment words. They can be either positive or negative. At the same time, such words should not be confused with assessment as a result of a metaphorical transfer, because of which they retain the original genus: crow, fox, rag, ulcer, beluga, goat, cow, deer, woodpecker, seal.
General words with negative and positive meanings include: bastard, prude, reptile, bruiser, baby, child, baby, quiet, invisible, poor fellow, lounger, bun, greedy, sweet tooth, chistyulya, greedy, hunks, rattlesnake, beast, star , bastard, mumble, know-it-all, slut, nonsense, dodger, asked, hard worker, hard worker, ignoramus, onlooker, drunkard, lapushka, cudgel, imagined, bumpkin, slut, dormouse, sneak, whim, caprice, liar, kopusa, fidget, toastmaster, grunt , hang.
An example of use is clearly shown in fiction: "The baby son came to his father" (Mayakovsky), "There lived an artist Tubik, a musician Guslya and other kids: Toropyzhka, Grumbler, Molchun, Donut, Rasteryayka, two brothers - Avoska and Neboska. And the most famous among them was a baby named Dunno. " (Noses). Perhaps, it is the works of Nikolai Nosov that will become a real collection of words with a common gender.
The least words in this group are occupied by neutral ones, such as: right-handed person, left-handed person, colleague, namesake, orphan. The gender of such words is also common.
How to determine gender with a common gender?
The general gender of nouns in the Russian language is determined by the impossibility of confidently indicating the gender in the absence of pronouns and generic endings of adjectives. Words that can be attributed to both the male and female gender will be included in this group.
In order to determine the gender of a noun, the accompanying indicative pronouns "this, this, that, that", the endings of adjectives -th, -th / s are most often used. But if the name of the profession, position or rank with the consonant "sergeant, doctor, doctor, director" and others is determined, then the adjective can only be masculine, but the predicate is feminine. "The doctor prescribed the drug" and "The attractive doctor left hospital "," The sergeant gave the order "and" The strict sergeant allowed to rest "," This model teacher Marina Nikolaevna! " and "An exemplary teacher gave an open lesson," "A cheerful puppeteer gave a presentation," and "The Old Master sat down on the porch." The predicate does not have to show the gender, then the task of determining the gender is complicated: "The teacher conducts the lesson", "The specialist makes the decision."
Variety of examples
Thanks to the examples, it becomes clear that the most diverse words can be found among nouns of a general kind, such as “daredevil”, “bully”, “bred”, “forester”, “old-timer”, “tail”, “six”, “ignoramus”, “bore”, “beloruchka”, “dud”, “junk”, “naughty girl”, “naughty little girl”. And other words. But they are all united by ambiguity in the definition of gender. Orphan, stylist, marketer, companion, coordinator, curator, Russian scholar, linguist, shirt, foreman, child, judge, kolobrodina, bastard, sore, protégé, roar, sang, muff, bombed, booby, dumbass, sneak, upstart, youngster, fear-man, poor thing, lame-footed, charm, first-grader, high school student, eleven-year-old - all these nouns can be used in relation to both sexes.
The widespread cultural distribution of general nouns in Russian is also interesting. For example, they are commonly used in proverbs and sayings:
- A healthy man is in food, and a cripple is in work.
- For every coot there is a deceiver.
- Walking in his youth is modest in old age.
- A drunkard is like a chicken, wherever he comes, he will bite there.
And in the literature:
- “So a strange deal took place, after which the tramp and the millionaire broke up, quite happy with each other” (Green).
- “A good girl, an orphan alone” (Bazhenov).
- “Your purity, as doctors say, is sterile” (Dubov).
- “Hillbilly! - What? - She staggered back” (Shargunov).
There are many such examples in the literature. Determining the general kind of the words listed in the exercise is one of the tasks in the Russian language lesson, which is easy to cope with.