NOUNS (nouns.doc)

Nouns are commonly thought of as "naming" words, and specifically as the names of "people, places, or things". Nouns such as John, London, and computer certainly fit this description, but the class of nouns is much broader than this. Nouns also denote abstract and intangible concepts such as birth, happiness, evolution, technology, management, imagination, revenge, politics, hope, cookery, sport, literacy....   

Because of this enormous diversity of reference, it is not very useful to study nouns solely in terms of their meaning. It is much more fruitful to consider them from the point of view of their formal characteristics.              

Characteristics of Nouns

Many nouns can be recognised by their endings. Typical noun endings include:  

Most nouns have distinctive SINGULAR and PLURAL forms. The plural of regular nouns is formed by adding -s to the singular:  

However, there are many irregular nouns which do not form the plural in this way:  

The distinction between singular and plural is known as NUMBER CONTRAST.  

We can recognise many nouns because they often have the, a, or an in front of them:     

the car   an artist   a surprise   the egg   a review

These words are called determiners, which is the next word class we will look at.  

Nouns may take an -'s ("apostrophe s") or GENITIVE MARKER to indicate possession:     

the boy's pen   a spider's web   my girlfriend's brother   John's house

If the noun already has an -s ending to mark the plural, then the genitive marker appears only as an apostrophe after the plural form:     

the boys' pens   the spiders' webs   the Browns' house

The genitive marker should not be confused with the 's form of contracted verbs, as in John's a good boy (= John is a good boy).  

Nouns often co-occur without a genitive marker between them:     

rally car   table top   cheese grater   University entrance examination

We will look at these in more detail later, when we discuss noun phrases.  

   Common and Proper Nouns

Nouns which name specific people or places are known as PROPER NOUNS.     

John   Mary   London   France

Many names consist of more than one word:     

John Wesley   Queen Mary   South Africa   Atlantic Ocean   Buckingham Palace

Proper nouns may also refer to times or to dates in the calendar:     

 January, February, Monday, Tuesday, Christmas, Thanksgiving

All other nouns are COMMON NOUNS.   

Since proper nouns usually refer to something or someone unique, they do not normally take plurals. However, they may do so, especially when number is being specifically referred to:     

there are three Davids in my class   we met two Christmases ago

For the same reason, names of people and places are not normally preceded by determiners the or a/an, though they can be in certain circumstances:     

it's nothing like the America I remember   my brother is an Einstein at maths

Count and Non-count Nouns

Common nouns are either count or non-count. COUNT nouns can be "counted", as follows:      

one pen, two pens, three pens, four pens... 

 NON-COUNT nouns, on the other hand, cannot be counted in this way:      

 one software, *two softwares, *three softwares, *four softwares... 

 From the point of view of grammar, this means that count nouns have singular as well as plural forms, whereas non-count nouns have only a singular form.   

 It also means that non-count nouns do not take a/an before them:   

 In general, non-count nouns are considered to refer to indivisible wholes. For this reason, they are sometimes called MASS nouns.   

Some common nouns may be either count or non-count, depending on the kind of reference they have. For example, in I made a cake, cake is a count noun, and the a before it indicates singular number. However, in I like cake, the reference is less specific. It refers to "cake in general", and so cake is non-count in this sentence.  

Pronouns

Pronouns are a major subclass of nouns. We call them a subclass of nouns because they can sometimes replace a noun in a sentence:   

In these examples the pronouns have the same reference as the nouns which they replace. In each case, they refer to people, and so we call them PERSONAL PRONOUNS. However, we also include in this group the pronoun it, although this pronoun does not usually refer to a person. There are three personal pronouns, and each has a singular and a plural form:   

These pronouns also have another set of forms, which we show here:   

The first set of forms (I, you, he...) exemplifies the SUBJECTIVE CASE, and the second set (me, you, him...) exemplifies the OBJECTIVE CASE. The distinction between the two cases relates to how they can be used in sentences. For instance, in our first example above, we say that he can replace John   

But he cannot replace John in I gave John a new job. Here, we have to use the objective form him: I gave him a new job.   

Other Types of Pronoun 

As well as personal pronouns, there are many other types, which we summarise here.   

Case and number distinctions do not apply to all pronoun types. In fact, they apply only to personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, and reflexive pronouns. It is only in these types, too, that gender differences are shown (personal he/she, possessive his/hers, reflexive himself/herself). All other types are unvarying in their form.   

Many of the pronouns listed above also belong to another word class - the class of determiners. They are pronouns when they occur independently, that is, without a noun following them, as in This is a new car. But when a noun follows them - This car is new - they are determiners. We will look at determiners in the next section.   

A major difference between pronouns and nouns generally is that pronouns do not take the or a/an before them. Further, pronouns do not take adjectives before them, except in very restricted constructions involving some indefinite pronouns (a little something, a certain someone).   

While the class of nouns as a whole is an open class, the subclass of pronouns is closed.      

Numerals

Numerals include all numbers, whether as words or as digits. They may be divided into two major types. CARDINAL numerals include words like: 
 

nought, zero, one, two, 3, fifty-six, 100, a thousand

ORDINAL numerals include 
 

first, 2nd, third, fourth, 500th 

We classify numerals as a subclass of nouns because in certain circumstances they can take plurals: 
 

five twos are ten  he's in his eighties

They may also take the: 
 

the fourth of July  a product of the 1960s

And some plural numerals can take an adjective before them, just like other nouns: 
 

the house was built in the late 1960s  he's in his early twenties  the temperature is in the high nineties

In each of our examples, the numerals occur independently, that is, without a noun following them. In these positions, we can classify them as a type of noun because they behave in much the same way as nouns do. Notice, for example, that we can replace the numerals in our examples with common nouns: 

Numerals do not always occur independently. They often occur before a noun, as in  
 

one day  three pages  the fourth day of July

In this position, we classify them as determiners, which we will examine in the next section. 

Finally, see if you can answer this question: 

Is the subclass of numerals open or closed? 
 

The Gender of Nouns

The gender of nouns plays an important role in the grammar of some languages. In French, for instance, a masculine noun can only take the masculine form of an adjective. If the noun is feminine, then it will take a different form of the same adjective - its feminine form.  

In English, however, nouns are not in themselves masculine or feminine. They do not have grammatical gender, though they may refer to male or female people or animals:  

These distinctions in spelling reflect differences in sex, but they have no grammatical implications. For instance, we use the same form of an adjective whether we are referring to a waiter or to a waitress:  

Similarly, the natural distinctions reflected in such pairs as brother/sister, nephew/niece, and king/queen have no consequence for grammar. While they refer to specific sexes, these words are not masculine or feminine in themselves.  

However, gender is significant in the choice of a personal pronoun to replace a noun:    

Here the choice of pronoun is determined by the sex of the person being referred to. However, this distinction is lost in the plural:  

Gender differences are also manifested in possessive pronouns (his/hers) and in reflexive pronouns (himself/herself).  

When the notion of sex does not apply -- when we refer to inanimate objects, for instance -- we use the pronoun it: