GRAMMAR - PARTS OF SPEECH - NOUNS

Questions answered in this post...

What is a NOUN?
How many types of NOUNS are there?
How can I recognise NOUNS and their type in a sentence?
How can I understand the ways in which NOUNS express gender, number and possession?

WHAT IS A NOUN - A DEFINITION

The word NOUN derives from the Latin word 'nomen' meaning 'name', so basically -- A NOUN IS A NAMING WORD.. NOUNS name:
- people
- places
- things
- qualities or conditions
- activities
- concepts

Category	Examples
Person	Writer/Shakespeare/nurse
Place	Mountain/town/Brisbane
Thing	Pencil/bottle/apple/Granny Smith
Quality/condition	Courage/happiness/depression
Activity	Drinking/praying/tennis
Concept	Fairness/justice/infinity

TYPES OF NOUNS

COMMON AND PROPER NOUNS

COMMON NOUNS name general places, things, people. PROPER NOUNS name specific places, things or people and begin with a capital letter.

EXAMPLES:

• I think that Earth (PROPER NOUN) is a fascinating planet (COMMON NOUN).
• My favourite author (COMMON NOUN) is Pat Conroy (PROPER).
• The hottest month (COMMON NOUN) in Brisbane (PROPER NOUN) is December (PROPER).
• Monopoly (PROPER) is a great game (COMMON).
• 
  

CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT NOUNS

CONCRETE NOUNS name something that we can understand with our senses--sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. ABSTRACT NOUNS name something intangible such as a concept or emotion.

• Greece (CONCRETE) was the birthplace of democracy (ABSTRACT).
• I have a phobia (ABSTRACT) of snakes (CONCRETE).
• I yelled and screamed with happiness (ABSTRACT) when I got an A+++ for my essay (CONCRETE).
• My mother (CONCRETE) gives me unconditional love (ABSTRACT).
• 
  

COLLECTIVE NOUNS 

COLLECTIVE NOUNS name groups of people or animals or collections of things regarded as a whole. They usually take a singular verb.

• Each year the herd travels the same route over the mountains.
• The crew was about to mutiny.
• From a distance, the crowd looked dangerous.
• The library is my sanctuary.
• A murder of crows was sitting on a fence.

If a collective noun is being used to represent a number of individual people or things, it takes a plural verb.

• The audience were slow to sit down.
• The crew are undecided about whether to mutiny or not.
• 
  

FEATURES OF NOUNS

NUMBER

A noun is either singular or plural in number, according to whether it names one or more than one person, place, thing. The plural is usually formed by additn 's' or 'es' to the singular form: boy/boys, lunch/lunches. However, there are exceptions: man/men, sheep/sheep. Number is important in subject-verb agreement and pronoun-antecedent agreement.

GENDER

A noun can have a feminine, masculine, common or neuter gender, but this feature of nouns has no grammatical significance in English: Mother/Father (Feminine/Masculine), parent (Common), paddock (Neuter).

POSSESSION

Nouns indicate by their form whether they show possession or now.

• Jilly's mother came to visit her.
• His father's expectations of him were too high.
• America's fiscal debt is unbelievable; it is in the trillions of dollars.
• The old lady gambled away her week's pension in two hours.

Go here for activities to practise what you have learnt.

With reference to: Australian Handbook for Writers and Editors by Margaret McKenzie. Available here.