NOUNS

Of all the parts of speech, nouns are perhaps the most important.

A noun is a part of speech that denotes a person, animal, place, thing, or idea.
The English word noun has its roots in the Latin word nomen, which means
“name.” Every language has words that are nouns.

Types of noun

Common noun

A common noun is a noun that refers to people or things in general, e.g. boy,
country, bridge, city, birth, day, happiness.

Proper noun

A proper noun is a name that identifies a particular person, place, or thing, e.g.
Steven, Africa, London, Monday. In written English, proper nouns begin with
capital letters.

Concrete noun

A concrete noun is a noun which refers to people and to things that exist
physically and can be seen, touched, smelled, heard, or tasted. Examples
include dog, building, coffee, tree, rain, beach, tune.

Abstract noun

An abstract noun is a noun which refers to ideas, qualities, and conditions -

things that cannot be seen or touched and things which have no physical
reality, e.g. truth, danger, happiness, time, friendship, humour.

Collective nouns

Collective nouns refer to groups of people or things, e.g. audience, family,

government, team, jury. In American English, most collective nouns are treated
as singular, with a singular verb:

The whole family was at the table.

In British English, the preceding sentence would be correct, but it would also be
correct to treat the collective noun as a plural, with a plural verb:

The whole family were at the table.

Count and mass nouns

Nouns can be either countable or uncountable. Countable nouns (or count

nouns) are those that refer to something that can be counted.

e.g. girl, boy

Uncountable nouns (or mass nouns) do not typically refer to things that can be
counted and so they do not regularly have a plural form.

e.g. history, news, time

A noun may belong to more than one category. For example, happiness is both
a common noun and an abstract noun, while Mount Everest is both a concrete
noun and a proper noun.

Compound Nouns

Compound nouns are made up of two or more words.

Examples: backspace, blackboard, copyright, daylight, downstairs, earring ,

everything , haircut, handwriting, toothpaste, weekend, lipstick, keyboard

Possessive Nouns

Possessive nouns show ownership or possession (something belongs to the

noun). For example:

Sandra's shoes. (the shoes belong to Sandra)

Noun Functions

It is good to know a little bit about how nouns can be used in sentences. Nouns
are one of the eight parts of speech in English and in any sentence they can do
different jobs. Nouns can be:

Subjects

Direct objects

Indirect objects

Predicate nouns

Objects of the prepositions

Appositive noun

an adjective

1 Subject

Subjects tell us whom or what a sentence is about.

Pizza is delicious.

2 Direct object

Direct objects recieve the action of a verb.

I threw the football.

3 Indirect objects

Indirect objects receive the direct object.

I threw John the football.

4 Predicate nouns

Predicate nouns are nouns that come after linking verbs.

They were grammar champions!

5 Objects of the prepositions

Objects of the prepositions are nouns that come after prepositions in

prepositional phrases.

I saw him in his office.

“Office" is the object of preposition ‘in’.

6 Appositive noun

Appositive means near. An appositive is a noun placed near another noun.

Mr. Ram, the captain, scored only fifty points.

“The captain" is in apposition with ‘Mr. Ram’.

7 An adjective

The water pump is broken.

The word water is a noun, but in this application it functions as an adjective

that describes the kind of pump.

Forming the plural of nouns

1 Most nouns form their plural by adding -s:

face - faces

school - schools

hole - holes

store - stores

week – weeks

part – parts

2 In other cases, the plural depends on how the noun ends.

 If the noun ends in -ch, -s, -sh, -x or -z, add -es. The plural ending -es.

box, watch, bus - boxes, watches, buses

  If the noun ends in a consonant plus -y, change y to i and add -es.

university, baby - universities, babies

 For some nouns ending in -f, change -f to –ves

wife, thief - wives, thieves

 If the noun ends in -o, add –es

potato, torpedo - potatoes, torpedoes

 Some nouns don’t change at all when they’re pluralized.

sheep – sheep

series – series

 Plural Noun Rules for Irregular Nouns

Irregular nouns follow no specific rules, so it’s best to memorize these

child – children

man – men

woman – women

tooth – teeth

foot – feet

mouse – mice

person – people

Making nouns

1 verb + ation/ -ment/ -ance

demonstrate+ ation= demonstration

enjoy+ ment= enjoyment

appear+ ance=appearance
2 adjective+ ence/-ity

evident+ ence=evidence

popular+ity=popularity

3 noun + ship

champion+ship= championship

friend+ship=friendship