Understanding of abstract nouns in linguistic disciplines

Despite centuries of studying abstract nouns, linguists have so far failed to come to unanimous understanding of this category but agree on the ambiguity of the term and the concept itself. The main issue every researcher faces is the lack of clearly defined term ‘abstract’. Moreover, there have been suggested numerous and diverse approaches to distinguishing between abstract and concrete nouns ranging from selected formal grammar criteria to semantic and extra linguistic parameters. This paper aims at considering the existing methods of determining abstract words with an attempt to understand which are better applicable. Besides, the article covers the progress in this research covering the period from Ancient Greece to present day researchers in various fields of knowledge, including but not limited to linguistics, clinical psychology, and philosophy, as all these areas propose their own outlook on the issue of the nature of abstractions and their distinction from concrete words. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of LINELT 2013.