NOUNS (compilation material) ristanti@stikom.edu

Collective Noun A collective noun is a noun naming a group of things, animals, or persons. You could count the individual members of the group, but you usually think of the group as a whole is generally as one unit. A collective noun is similar to a non-countable noun, and is roughly the opposite of a countable noun. Examples: - The flock of geese looks beautiful. - The steering committee meets every Sunday in the meeting room. - The jury is dining on fast food restaurant tonight.

Possessive Noun In the possessive case, a noun or pronoun changes its form to show that it owns or is closely related to something else. Usually, nouns become possessive by adding a combination of an apostrophe and the letter "s." You can form the possessive case of a singular noun that does not end in "s" by adding an apostrophe and "s, You can form the possessive case of a singular noun that ends in "s" by adding an apostrophe alone or by adding an apostrophe and "s, You can form the possessive case of a plural noun that does not end in "s" by adding an apostrophe and a "s," You can form the possessive case of a plural noun that does end in "s" by adding an apostrophe

WHAT ARE NOUNS? Naming words. Name: people, places and objects. Can also name ideas, emotions, qualities and activities. Examples of nouns: Peter, Elizabeth, driver, sister, friend. Bristol, Severn, Brazil, pen, dog, money. Love, beauty, industry, nature, greed, pain.

Types of Nouns and How They Relate. proper abstract nouns countable concrete common abstract uncountable concrete

Proper nouns Start with capital letters. Names of people, places, times, organisations etc. Refer to unique individuals. Most are not found in the dictionary. Often occur in pairs or groups.

Common nouns All nouns which are not proper nouns are common nouns. Examples: cup, art, paper, work, frog, bicycle, atom, family, mind. Common nouns are either countable or uncountable.

Countable nouns To Tests countable nouns: can be made plural: a tree… two trees; a man… men; a pony… ponies. In the singular, they may have the determiner a or an: a sausage; an asterisk. We ask: How many tables/chairs? We say: A few minutes/friends?

Uncountable nouns To Tests uncountable nouns: cannot be made plural. We cannot say: two funs, three advices or five furnitures. We never use a or an with them. We ask: How much money/time/milk? (Not How many?) We say: A little help/effort. (Not A few.)

Dual category nouns Some nouns may be countable or uncountable, depending on how we use them. Examples: We buy a box of chocolates (countable) or a bar of chocolate (uncountable). We ask: How much time? but How many times? (where times = occasions). We sit in front of a television (set) to watch television (broadcasting).

Field-specific nouns Uncountable nouns are often turned into countable nouns by specialists in a particular field. They become part of the jargon of that specialism. Examples: Grass is usually uncountable but botanists and gardeners talk about grasses. Financiers refer to moneys or even monies. Teas may be used to mean types of tea.

Concrete nouns Concrete nouns are the words that most people think of as nouns. They are mostly the names of objects and animals (countable) and substances or materials (uncountable). Examples: Cake, oxygen, iron, boy, dog, pen, glass, pomegranate, earthworm and door are all concrete nouns.

Abstract nouns Abstract nouns name ideas, feelings and qualities. Most, though not all, are uncountable. Many are derived from adjectives and verbs and have characteristic endings such as –ity, -ness, -ence, and -tion.

Abstract noun or adjective Happy is an adjective. It behaves like: very happy; so happy; happier; as happy as Happiness behaves like a noun: The happiness I feel; her happiness; great happiness.

A few more examples Verb or adjective Abstract noun We were different from each other. The difference between us. My work is precise. I work with precision. The air is pure. The purity of the air. I composed this tune. This tune is my composition. It is so beautiful. It has such beauty. You support me. The support you give me.

The morphology of nouns Nouns change their form for only two grammatical reasons: Countable nouns have a plural form. Formed by adding –s, of course, but there are some irregular forms. The possessive form of a noun is created by adding –’s (Henry’s cat) or just an apostrophe (all our students’ results).

Irregular plurals Some nouns retain plural endings from Old English: Men, geese, mice, oxen, feet, teeth, knives. Loan words from Latin, Greek, French and Italian sometimes keep their native ending: Media, bacteria, formulae, larvae, criteria, phenomena, gateaux. Graffiti, an Italian plural, is now an uncountable noun in English.

Noun Gender A noun has a gender which may be expressed explicitly, or implicitly. Important for meaning, clarity, and to further "agree the noun in gender" with other sentence elements (adjectives and pronouns). Nouns' grammatical category of gender is one of the following: 1. masculine: man, boy, workman, he-goat 2. feminine: woman, girl, actress, hen, she-goat 3. common: teacher, student, turkey, book, car

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