•Nouns
Common Nouns
Common noun can be countable or uncountable:
Countable common nouns refer to
entities which can be counted
• They have both a singular and plural
form (a book, two books)
• Both in singular and in the plural
there is a contrast between
indefinite and definite, signaled by
articles: a book v. the book -
books v. the books .
Uncountable common nouns refer
to something which cannot be
counted
• They no vary for number.
• They cannot occur with the
indefinite article a(n) , but they
allow a contrast between
definite and indefinite: the
sugar v sugar.
Concrete v Abstract nouns

Concrete nouns refer to Abstrac nouns refer to

physical entities or abstrractions such as events,
substances. states, times, and qualities.

The distinction between concrete and abstrac nouns is purely semantic; it has
no real grammatical rol, since abstrac nouns, like concrete nouns, can be
countable, uncountable, common or propper.

Countable concrete nouns refer to person, objects, places ( e.g. doctor,

car, hospital)

Uncountable concrete nouns refer to substance, materials, liquids,

gases (e.g steel, water, air)
The same noun as countable or
uncountable
Many nouns can be both countable and
uncountable, but with a difference of
meaning:
• I think these are eggs from our new
chickens «Countable»
• Would you like some chicken for dinner?
«Uncountable»
• Also, many basically uncountable nouns
have countable uses:
• I think I would like some wine though
«Uncountable»
• A lot of non-alcoholic wines are
expensive «Countables», = types of wines
• In similar way, abstract nouns can have
countable and uncountable uses:
• What’s your highest level of education?
«Uncountable»
• Although she was a girl she wanted an
education. «Countable»
Plural uncountable nouns
Although it may seem to be a
contradiction, there are a few plural
uncountable nouns:
• She wears those jigsaw-type clothes,
trousers usually.
• She reached for the scissors.
• Letters of thanks have been flooding
our office.
These are plural in that they have a plural
ending –s and go with plural determiners,
but they are uncountable because there is
no singular form ‘‘a clothe, a thank’’.
(Notice that clothes, referring to the things
people wear, is not the plural of cloth,
wich has its own plural cloths.)
 Propper nouns
Importan types of propor nouns are
 Personal names (e.g Wilson, Tom)
 Places names (e.g Argentina, Tucumán)
 Organization names (e.g Fiat, Congress)
 Time names (e.g Friday, February, Halloween)

▪ Grammatically, these nouns have no determiner and do not have contrast of

number between singular and plural.
▪ In spelling, propper nouns are marked by an initial capital letter.
▪ Many names are actually multi-word expession, and contain ordinary
lexical words: e.g the White House, the Horn of Africa.
▪ As the examples show, a name may aslo preceded by the, something which
can aslo occur with a single proper name as in the Sahara (Desert), the
Pacific (Ocean), the Vatican.
 Inital capitals Propper nouns regulary
occurring with ‘‘the’’
The use of initial capitals in
spelling extends beyond proper Some propper nouns occur with
names. Uses for which the capital a definite article. Important
letter is conventional are: group are:

• Personal names
• Geographical names
• Objects, especially
commercial products
• Religious perios,
months , and days of the
week
• Religions and some
religious conceps
• Address terms for
family memvers
Proper nouns behaving
like common nouns
Sometimes proper nouns
can function like common nouns.
The following show typical uses:
• People or bodies with a • Greographical names (e.g. the Panama,
unique public function the Nile)
• Public buildings • Plural geographical names (e.g. the
• Political parties and their Cayman Island, the Great Smoky Mountains)
member • Buildings with public functions, such
• Languaes, nationalities, and as hotels, restaurants, theatres,
ethnic groups museum, and libraries (e.g. the Ritz, the
• Adjectives and common Metropolitan)
nouns derived from proper • Names of ships (e.g. the Titanic)
nouns (e.g Victorian, the
Victorian(s) New Yorker(s)
• Many newspaper and some
periodicals (e.g. The New York Times)
• a person or family called X:
I haven’t been in touch with the Joneses for ages <the
Jones family>
• a product of X:
I got a Bentley, two Cadillacs, a Chrysler station
wagon, and an MG for my boy <makes of car>
Package nouns
Four special classes of countable common nouns are
considered in this section: collective nouns, unit nouns,
quiantifying nouns, and species nouns. Overall, they
have a function of ‘packaging’ together a range of entities.
The four different calsses are sometimes difficult to
separate.
Collective nouns
• Collective nouns refers to groups of people, animal, or things: e.g. army, audience, committee, family,
staff, team, flock, bunch.
• All these nouns behave like ordinary countable, varying for number and definiteness: the team, a team,
the teams, teams.

• One special class of collective nouns often comes before an of-phrase describing the members of the
group:
Two little group of people stood at a respectable distance beyond the stools.
There was a small crowd of people around.
The airflow flew into a large flock of seagulls just after take-off.
They are called of-collectives because they generally precede of + plural noun, where the plural noun
names a set of people, animals, objects, etc. Some typical collocations are:

Collective noun Selected collocations

Bunch of idiots, thievesm roses, grapes

Crowd of demonstrators, fans, spectors, shoppers

Flock of birds, doves, geese , sheep, children

Gang of bandits, hecklers, thugs

Group of adults, girls, anmals, buildings, diseases,

things
Set of assumptions, characterics, conditions
 Unit nouns
• Unit nouns allow us to cut up a generalized mass or subtance into
indiviual units or pieces. They are countable nouns, but they are usually
followed by an of-phrase containing an uncountable noun.

Unit noun Selected collocatios

A bit of cake, wood, fun, luck
A chunk of chocolate, concrete, gold
A grain of corn, dust, salt, sand
An item of clothing, equipement, news
An lump of clay, coal, soil, butter, fat
A piece of cake, toast, chalk, land, wood,
advice, evidence
A sheet of cardboard, iron, paper
 Quantifying nouns
Quantifying nouns are used to refer to quantities, wich are usually specified in
a following of-phrase containing either a plural noun or an uncountable noun:
a pile of bricks a pile of rubbish
a kilo of potatoes a kilo of flour
We distinguish seven kinds of quantifying nouns:
Nouns for a tiype of container Basket of: eggs, flowers, bread, fruit

Nouns for shape Head of: ashes, blankets, bones, leaves, rubble

Measure nouns Pint, gallon, quart, liter/litre of: beer, blood, gas, milk, oil, wine

Plural numeral nouns
Nouns for large quantities
Hundred, thousand, million, dozen, and score are nouns for precise
numbers. But they can be used in the plural to express an
idenfinitely large number: ‘‘Oh goodness, darling, you’ve seen it
hundred of times’’
A load of: fuel garbage, junk, money, stuff

Nouns ending in –ful
Pair and couple
The noun suffix –ful can be added to almost any non that can
denote some kind of container. For example: bowlful, earlful, fistful,
handful, pocketful, spoonful, teaspoonful
Pair of: arms,eyes, glasses, gloves, hands, pants, pliers, scissors,
shoes, socks.
 Species nouns
Species nouns are another class of nouns often followed buy an of-phrase, but they refer
to the type rather than the quantify of something:‘‘sort of, kinds of, types of, make of, class
of, species of ’’, e.g:
▪ Mr. Mathew is the sort of character Dickens liked to create.
Species nouns can be followed by countable or uncountable nouns, there is a
choice betwen singular and plural for both nouns:
1. Any make of machine. «singular+of+singular»
2. What sort of things. «singular+of+plural»

‘‘Others species nouns (type (of) and species (of)) are frequent only in
academic writring’’