RECOGNIZING NOUNS

NOUN

A noun is a naming word. Commonly defined as names of persons , place, or things .

There are four main kinds of nouns:

• Common noun: It does not name any particular person, place or thing. It speaks in general
about all persons, places or things of the same kind.

Examples: The boy kicked the ball. The plate is lying on the table.

• Proper noun: It names a particular person, place or thing.

Examples: Jayasurya lives in Sri Lanka. J K Rowling lives in Britain.

• Abstract noun: It names a feeling or a state of being which has no form or shape and which
cannot be seen or touched, but whose existence we recognise.

Examples: A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Perseverence leads to success.

• Collective noun: It names a group or collection of persons or things taken together and
treated as one.

Examples: He gave me a bunch of flowers.

The pride of lions was asleep

. Nouns can be further classified into:

• Countable nouns: Nouns which can be counted are called countable nouns.

So these nouns can be either singular or plural. Some common nouns and collective nouns
belong to this category.

Examples: one boy, many boys, a herd of elephants, herds of elephants

• Uncountable nouns: Nouns which cannot be counted are called uncountable nouns.So they
are neither singular nor plural.

Some common nouns and abstract nouns belong to this category.

Examples: some rice, much happiness

George! Jupiter! Ice cream! Courage! Books! Bottles! Godzilla!

All of these words are nouns, words that identify the whos, wheres, and whats in language.
Nouns name people, places, and things.

Read the sentence that follows:

George and Godzilla walked to Antonio's to order a large pepperoni pizza.

George is a person. Antonio's is a place. Pizza is a thing. Godzilla likes to think he's a person, is
as big as a place, but qualifies as another thing.

Understand the functions that nouns provide in sentences.

Nouns can function as subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, objects of prepositions, and
subject complements. Check out these examples:

Godzilla ordered a large pepperoni pizza and ate the pie in a single bite.

Godzilla = the subject for the verbs ordered and ate.

George offered Godzilla a ten-dollar loan to buy a second pizza.

Godzilla = the indirect object of offered; loan = the direct object of offered.

While eating a piece of pizza, George dripped tomato sauce onto his shirt.

Shirt = the object of the preposition onto.

In Godzilla's opinion, George is a slob.

Slob = subject complement of the linking verb is.

WORKSHEET 1
DIRECTION: Pick out the nouns in the following sentences.

1. The elephant has great strength.

2. Joan Reston was the first prime minister of India.

3. Zelyn was restless.

4.The dog bark.

5. The jury was convinced of his innocence.

6. Our class consists of fifty pupils.

7. The success of the show was pleased by Ms. Alley joy

8. Marbert win the game.

9. Mariel take a bus to school.

10. Nabunturan was the capital of Comval.

WORKSHEET 2
DIRECTION: Fill in the blanks with suitable nouns from the given
words in the box below.

Bag , Philippines , Jose Rizal , Kite , sepak takraw , badminton , class , Roses ,
Kathyryn , car , carabao , Lupang Hinirang , Eifel tower.

1. The ____________of Jean was full of papers.

2. The ____________ flew above.

3. ____________ was the national hero of ____________.

4. Kim give red ____________ to____________ .

5. The black american ride a white ____________.

6. The ___________ was the national animal in the Philippines.

7. ____________ is the national game of Philippines.

8. I like playing indoor games like ____________.

9. The teacher shouted in ____________ when she saw the poor attendance.

10. _________ is the famous tower in the world.

WORKSHEET 3

DIRECTION: Choose the correct nouns from those given in the

brackets and fill in the blanks.

1. He shifted all his ____________ (furniture/furnitures) to his new house.

2. He gave the shopkeeper a hundred ____________ (rupee/rupees) note.

3. The old man cannot see without his ____________ (spectacle/spectacles).

4. I cut the string with a pair of ____________ (scissor/scissors).

5. The (cattle/cattles) ____________ are grazing in the field.

6. I have got some ____________ (dollars/dollar).

7. This (new/news) ____________ is very important.

8. I haven’t had much ____________ (rices/rice).

9. I like to hear different kinds of ____________ (musics/music).

10. There are three ____________ (peoples/people) here.

RECOGNIZING PRONOUNS

PRONOUN
Pronouns take the place of nouns. As substitutes for nouns, pronouns allow more variety in
writing by avoiding repetition.

A pronoun, as a noun replacement, has the same variety of functions as a noun, depending on
the pronoun’s position in a sentence.

The highlighted words in the following sentences are pronouns that reflect the same functions
as nouns:

EXAMPLES:

He emailed the memo.

The pronoun he functions as the subject of the sentence.

The employee e-mailed it.

The pronoun it functions as the direct object of the sentence.

The employee e-mailed him the memo.

The pronoun him functions as the indirect object of the sentence.

The employee e-mailed the memo to him.

The pronoun him functions as the object of the preposition.

The employee’s memo is his.

The pronoun his functions as the subject complement.

Types of Pronouns

Pronouns are classified into several types.

They include personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, indefinite

pronouns, reflexive pronouns and relative pronouns.

1. Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns indicate the person speaking, the person spoken to, or the person or object
spoken of.

There are three forms of personal pronouns:

Subject Form , Object Form , Possessive Form

I , me , mine , you , yours , he , him , his , she , her , hers , it , its , we , us , ours , they , them ,
theirs.

The following sentences show how personal pronouns take the place of nouns.

EXAMPLES:

Alison threw the bouquet to the women. (nouns)

She threw it to them. (pronouns)

The tourists followed the guide along the ridge. (nouns)

They followed him along it. (pronouns)

 2. Demonstrative Pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns direct attention to particular persons or things.

There are only four demonstrative pronouns:

Singular Plural ( this , these , that , those )

This and these refer to things that are nearby either in space or time. In contrast, that and
those refer to things that are farther away either in space or time.

The following sentences show how the demonstrative pronouns can replace nouns.

EXAMPLE:

The lamp in the kitchen belongs with the furniture in the bedroom. (nouns)

That belongs with those. (pronouns)

The recent story describes the family’s adventures. (nouns)

This describes those. (pronouns)

3. Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns replace nouns in questions.

They include (who, which, what, whoever, whatever, whose.)

EXAMPLE:

The following sentences show how nouns as subjects of declarative sentences or statements
can be replaced by interrogative pronouns as subjects in interrogative sentences or questions.
The program was never aired. (noun as subject)

What was never aired? (pronoun as subject)

The girl fell asleep early. (noun as subject)

Who fell asleep early (pronoun as subject)

The person who wrote the report lacked the proper data. (noun as subject)

Whoever wrote the report lacked the proper data. (pronoun as subject)

An interrogative pronoun can also replace a possessive noun.

Note how the following pair of sentences shows how the object of the declarative sentence
becomes the subject of the interrogative sentence.

EXAMPLE:

This is Marjorie’s. (possessive noun as object of the verb)

Whose is this? (interrogative pronoun as subject of the verb)

4. Indefinite Pronouns

Indifinite pronouns replace nouns, but they do not refer to any specific person, place, or thing.

The following pair of sentences shows how indefinite pronouns replace nouns with non-specific
references.

EXAMPLE:

The politicians vote on the bill. (noun)

Each of the politicians votes on the bill. (pronoun)

Note: The plural verb vote agrees with the plural subject politicians in the first sentence. The
second sentence replaces the noun politicians with the pronoun each. Each is a singular subject
that agrees with the singular verb votes.

Some indefinite pronouns are always singular while others are always plural.

Singular Plural ( everybody , anyone , nobody , somebody , both , several , most , few )

5. Reflexive Pronouns
Reflexive pronouns emphasize or reflect on their antecedents. Antecedents are the nouns or
pronouns already mentioned.

The following sentence shows how reflexive pronouns refer back to their antecedents.

EXAMPLE:

Rita treated herself to a piece of chocolate cake.

In this sentence, the reflexive pronoun herself refers to its antecedent Rita.

If there is no reference made to an antecedent in the sentence, use a personal pronoun instead
of a reflexive pronoun.

EXAMPLE:

The piece of chocolate was bought for her. (Not herself)

In this sentence, the personal pronoun her is used instead of the reflexive pronoun herself
because the pronoun has no antecedent.

Other Examples of Reflexive Pronouns: (myself , yourself , himself , ourselves , yourselves ,

themselves )
 6. Relative pronouns
introduce clauses that say something about the noun phrases that precede them.

The most common relative pronouns are (who, which and that).

Other relative pronouns are ( whom, whose, where and when.)

The following sentences contain relative pronouns:

EXAMPLE:

My teacher showed us a book that was printed in 1849.

The space shuttle Daedalus, which had recently come out of storage, veered out of control as
soon as it entered the ion storm.

I hope the person who stole my Ethics textbook will read it.

In the above sentences, the relative pronouns are the subjects of the clauses they introduce.
Relative pronouns can also be objects, as in the sentences below:

EXAMPLE:

The hat that my cousin bought looks like a lampshade.

The man whom the neurosurgeon married speaks seven languages.

My veterinarian’s toucan, which she picked up on her recent travels, amuses the visitors in
her clinic.

The relative pronoun can be omitted when it is the object of an essential clause, as in the first
two of the three sentences above:

EXAMPLE:

The hat my cousin bought looks like a lampshade. (that has been omitted)

The man the neurosurgeon married speaks seven languages. (whom has been omitted)
The relative pronoun can also be the object of a preposition:

EXAMPLE:

The programme to which we applied is full.

The readers for whom this book has been written will probably never read it.

7. POSSESSIVE PRONOUN
A pronoun that derives from a personal pronoun.

These includes:

(Mine, yours , its , theirs , ours , his , hers.)

EXAMPLE:

That is mine.( mine as a pronoun)

This Smart English book is hers. ( hers possesses ownership)

8. INTENSIVE PRONOUN
Are compound personal pronouns used for emphasis.

EXAMPLE:

They themselves can defend the fort.

He himself did the work.

WORKSHEET 1

DIRECTIONS: Choose the appropriate pronoun to use in each of the

following sentences.

1. The people at the top of the stairs must have been ( them , they ).

2. ( Those , That ) are my friends.

3. Fresh student like ( I , me ) is cool.

4. ( Who , What ) give this flower?

5. It was ( them , they ) who inspired me on this career.

6. It was ( him , that ) who is behind the door.

7. ( Nobody , myself ) knows Im the suspect.

8. Nobody knows more than ( I , neither ) do.

9. These are ( all , none ) collected gifts from abroad.

10. ( Everyone , which ) is allowed to join the party.

WORKSHEET 2

DIRECTIONS: Supply the table below by simply putting the

appropriate pronoun.

PERSONAL PRONOUN SINGULAR

NOMINATIVE POSSESSIVE OBJECTIVE

1ST PERSON
I

2ND PERSON
You

3RD PERSON

MASCULINE
Her , hers

FEMININE
She

NEUTERS
Its