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Oct 2016
2:22pm, 7 Oct 2016
4,415 posts
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sallykate
We need a historian to tell us when the distinction started and why - does it exist in other languages?
Cyclops, thank you. I'll pass that on to my daughter - this year is all about the purposes of testing, it seems to me.
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Oct 2016
2:23pm, 7 Oct 2016
7,952 posts
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Nicholls595
Dragons aren't common. They are very rare.
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Oct 2016
2:34pm, 7 Oct 2016
17,586 posts
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DeeGee
Can one pluralise an abstract noun in English?
They exist in French, but only in the singular.
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Oct 2016
2:55pm, 7 Oct 2016
4,417 posts
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sallykate
Some, like strength, are often pluralised. Others, like happiness, don't really work.
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Oct 2016
3:07pm, 7 Oct 2016
5,774 posts
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paul the builder
NE - was that question to me? If so - it was why we need to differentiate between 'concrete' nouns, and 'abstract' nouns. I don't understand how it benefits us.
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Oct 2016
3:11pm, 7 Oct 2016
17,587 posts
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DeeGee
Is "strength" abstract, though? Surely it is tangible?
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Oct 2016
3:14pm, 7 Oct 2016
27,435 posts
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JenL
Paul-the-Builder: any linguist worthy of the title will tell you that the distinction in English is often arbitrary. It depends on how you see the world and what environment you are using those words in - for example, some people would characterise God as unquestionably concrete; others would say, and as a scientist you might be one of them, that this can only ever be an abstract idea. Your particular religion will also dictate whether the noun God can have a plural or not, or whether its use as a plural actually changes the meaning to a greater or lesser extent. Such questions have no single correct idea, and that's one of the problems with the kinds of grammar tests that schools are currently having to inflict on their students. In fact, the interesting things, linguistically, are not "the answers" but the discussions and questions themselves.
In languages other than English, the distinction will be much more clear-cut (though perhaps only to L1 speakers of those languages since the semantic groupings that affect matters such as inflectional marking for gender can seem idiosyncratic from the outside) because, particularly in languages whose grammar retains a high morphological content, the concrete/abstract distinction affects other grammatical choices, which means that getting it wrong would mark out the non-native speaker in the same way that the wrong choice of preposition or indefinite/definite/no article would in English.
These right/wrong "tests" really irritate me because they are not the absolutes they are being given to children as. If we take the count/non-count distinction, for example, "rice" and "mud" are commonly con-count nouns but there are significant instances, particularly in literary language but also in specialisms like rice-growing, food tech, farming and geology in which they can, and need to, be pluralised.
On questions of whether unicorns and dragons are concrete or abstract, the only accurate answer must be "it depends", but of course that isn't an option in tests, is it?
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Oct 2016
7:54pm, 7 Oct 2016
11,423 posts
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Columba
Surely they are concrete nouns, no matter that they may not have any reference in the Real World (whatever that is).
"languages whose grammar retains a high morphological content" - could you explain that, Jen? Maybe with a f'rinstance or two?
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Oct 2016
9:23pm, 7 Oct 2016
4,418 posts
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sallykate
You can't sense strength - you can't taste it, see it, hear it, touch it, or smell it. So it's intangible and abstract. Even if you can measure it. That was the origin of my query. Are all qualities abstract nouns - even the ones we choose to measure, such as strength, eyesight, any number of attributes?
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Oct 2016
9:27pm, 7 Oct 2016
4,419 posts
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sallykate
JenL, the right / wrong tests irritate me immensely as they encourage that attitude in our children. I am by nature someone who likes things to be either right or wrong, which might explain why I went into the physical sciences, but I might have had a richer education if I'd been encouraged to embrace the grey.
My daughter always wants to be right but I think there's a more important critical thinking aspect which is what could be explored with the "it depends" angle. I just hope she gets through this year with an open mind which can still think critically.
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