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1. Nouns
A. a. Common and Proper Nouns
b. Identifying Nouns
I. Determiners
i. Note on Using the Tests
ii. Examples of Nouns and Non-Nouns
II. Plurals
III. Possession
c. Abstract and Concrete Nouns
I. What are concrete and abstract nouns?
II. Examples of Concrete and Abstract Nouns
d. Nominalizations
I. Nominalizations summarizing Previous Ideas
II. Nominalizations naming the Verb's Subject or Object
III. Common Ideas
e. General and Specific Nouns
f. Countable and Uncountable Nouns (Mass Nouns)
g. Collective Nouns (Group Nouns)
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h. Quantity Nouns
Nouns
A noun is the name of a person, a place, a thing or an idea. Sometimes a noun is the name of an action.
person man, woman, child
place ocean, desert, wood, farm
thing cabbage, hammer,
idea hope, plan, memory
action intention, thinking, running
Common nouns describe groups or members of groups; whereas, proper nouns identify a unique example. Proper
names are usually capitalised.
Common Noun Proper Noun
man Tom
aircraft Tiger Moth
religion Christianity
entertainers The Beatles
nation England
In English, the days of the week and the months are capitalised:
January, February ... November, December
but the seasons are not:
winter, spring, summer, autumn
(Although the seasons are capitalised in USA).
Directions are not capitalised:
north, west, south, east
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Identifying Nouns
Proper nouns are easy to identify because they are the names of particular people or things. For instance, Rob,
Betty, Lorraine.
Determiners
Common nouns can be preceded by determiners: a , the, some, a few, my, ...
If a word is a common noun, then the following sentence makes sense when the word is inserted:
My [insert noun ] (is/are here).
For instance, house is a noun, so:
My house is here,
makes sense.
Most tests show whether a word could be a noun - sometimes. They do not indicate the word is a noun in the given
sentence. To do this, we need to apply the test in that sentence. Consider this sentence:
The delicate and time-consuming work is important.
Using our test [My [insert noun ] (is/are here).]:
My work is here.
makes sense. So the word work can sometimes be a noun. (Sometimes it is a verb, of course).
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To determine whether a word is a noun, we need to apply the test in the sentence. In the sentence:
The delicate and time-consuming work is important.
We note that 'work' is preceded by the determiner 'The', so it is a noun.
In this sentence:
They work till they drop.
We cannot precede the word work with my:
My work till they drop.
Therefore work isn't a noun in this sentence. (It is, of course, a verb, in that sentence).
Here are some examples of applying the test on nouns and non-nouns:
Nouns Non-Nouns
My cat is here My entertaining is here
My bread is here My starchy is here
My principal is here My quickly is here
My dollars are here My full is here
My envelope is here My exceptional is here
Plurals
Nouns often have plurals; whereas other parts of speech do not. So if a word has a plural, it is a noun. Uncountable
Nouns, however, do not have plurals.
Singular Plural
cat cats
The following nouns are abstract: walk, jump, intelligence and embarrassment. However, a thoughtful reader might
object and say:
I saw Mr Jones take a walk with her dog.
I saw the record-breaking jump on tv.
I can hear the intelligence in her words. [Hear intelligence? ]
The embarrassment was obvious [clearly seen].
Actually, abstract nouns are nouns that name things that we clearly cannot see or feel. For instance, luck, freedom
and justice are more or less intangible. With other abstract nouns, we might be unsure. After careful thought, we
might wonder whether we can see 'a walk'. Or see a 'jump'. Can we really hear 'intelligence', and see
'embarrassment'. It seems we infer 'intelligence' and 'embarrassment' rather than perceive them directly through the
senses we see a red face and infer embarrassment; we hear someone speaking logically and infer they are
intelligent. And while we can see someone or something jumping or walking, when these become nouns 'the jump'
and 'the walk' we have omitted or abstracted the subject. In:
I saw the jump on the tv.
We note there cannot be a 'real' jump without a jumper (subject), and the jumper has been omitted or abstracted. So
'jump' is an abstract noun. In writing 'the jump' we have made a verb into a noun and abstracted the person, animal
or thing that did 'the jumping' (jumping is also an abstract noun). If the writer wished to avoid the abstract noun
'jump', she would have written:
I saw the horse jump the hurdle on the tv.
We can perceive a horse jumping, but we cannot perceive the jump without the horse, so 'jump' is not sensory after
all.
In a similar way, when we make an adjective or an adverb a noun, we abstract some important grammatical part,
such as a subject and the word becomes an abstract noun.
I can hear the intelligence in her words. I heard her speaking intelligently [adverb].
The embarrassment was obvious [clearly seen]. I could see he was embarrassed.
Concrete Nouns
People Tom, woman, man, doctor, policeman,
turnip, wind, bed, test-tube, chair, basket,
Objects
atom, DNA, cell, tree
Animals puppy, lion, animal, germ, virus,
Places England, country, island, mountain, lake
Abstract nouns are not perceivable by the senses. For instance, we can see a person is joyful, but we cannot perceive
joy apart from someone being joyful. The word joy is therefore an abstract noun.
Abstract Nouns
intelligence, beauty, ugliness,
Qualities kindness, strength, vulnerability,
truth, heat,
humanity, freedom, abstraction,
energy, force, luck, justice,
Ideas injustice, misfortune, grammar,
calculus, ideas, disease, (the
common) cold,
love, hate, fear, anger, imagination,
courage, loneliness, happiness,
sadness, bravery, cowardice,
States of Mind embarrassment, joy, confidence,
bitterness, grief, boredom,
cheerfulness, cognition, depression,
dream,
Nominalizations
A nominalization is a noun which has been made from another part of speech, such as a verb, adjective or adverb.
They are abstract nouns.
Nominalizations summarizing Previous Ideas
The nominalizations are shown in bold.
By excluding details, you produce an abstract idea. Therefore, an abstraction has fewer details than the
original.
He campaigned against violent behaviour on the streets. He would not tolerate street violence.
He inferred a number of things about the new substance. What he had inferred , however, was invalid.
He inferred a number of things about the new substance. However, his inferences were invalid.
Common Ideas
A nominalization can be used to succinctly express a common idea, when it becomes a short-hand way of referring
to a complex idea.
For the new year, I resolved to do some new things.
I made some New Year Resolutions.
They objected to women being allowed to ask doctors to abort their foetuses, for non-medical reasons.
The objected to abortion on demand.
Uncountable nouns are sometimes called mass nouns. We think of them as a mass. For instance, fish is uncountable
when used to refer to food, but is countable when we think of a number of individual fish, when its plural is fish or
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fishes. Similarly, we can say:
I spent the weekend watching films.
When we think of watching several films. But when we think of the subject, film, we do not use the plural. We
might say:
I spent the weekend studying film. (Reading books about film or films, watching films, etc).
Collective nouns are normally singular, except when this seems obviously wrong.
Considered as a number
Considered as a unit.
of Individuals
The audience are
The audience is quiet
clapping their hands.
The flock of birds is Now, the flock of birds
heading North. are competing for food.
The team is working
The team are squabbling.
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The team are squabbling.
together.
The family is going to the The family are at
cinema. loggerheads.
For instance:
The audience is clappings its hand.
is obviously wrong.
Quantity Nouns