ÍNDEX

INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................1

Noun and Noun Phrase......................................................................................................2

Kinds of Nouns...................................................................................................................2

Nouns: Countability...........................................................................................................3

Noun: Cases.......................................................................................................................6

Plural of nouns...................................................................................................................7

GENERIC NOUNS...............................................................................................................8

CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................9

BIBLOGRAFIA..................................................................................................................10

MEMBERS OF THE GROUP............................................................................................11

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INTRODUCTION

A Nouns is the name of a person place or thing. A thing includes a quality (fear) a
material (gold), a collection (herd, army), a state (adherence) and an action (cheat,
mock, movement) 1.3 Noun and Noun Phrase A noun is often called a' noun
phrase. A noun phrase can be a single-word noun.

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Noun and Noun Phrase

A noun is often called a' noun phrase. A noun phrase can be a single-word noun:
Teachers love their pupils. (noun phrase: teacher) But a noun phrase is usually
longer than a single word because it consists of an adjective or a determiner plus
a noun. A good teacher loves his pupils. (noun phrase: a good teacher.

Kinds of Nouns

Nouns can be classified into five kinds: Proper nouns, Common nouns, Collective
nouns, Material nouns & Abstract nouns.

1. Proper nouns

A proper noun is the name of a particular person or thing, i.e. a name used for an
individual person or place, river, or mountain etc.:

Mary, Rahul, Godavari, India, Everest

2. Common nouns

A common noun refers to any and every person or thing of the same kind or class,
not to a particular person or thing:

cow, dog, girl, boy, man, woman

Common nouns Proper nouns

 Girl  Latha
 dog  Rover
 man  Aslam

3. Collective nouns

A collective noun is the name of a collection, group of people, or things of the

same kind: class, team, government jury, federation.

4. Material nouns

A material noun is the name of a material, substance, or ingredient things are

made of. They can be articles of food or drink as well: iron, copper, steel, gold,
coal, silver, rice, wheat, milk, water, tea, sugar

Note: A material noun is a type of common noun but a distinction is made between
the two. A common noun is usually a countable noun but a material noun is an
uncountable noun.

The cow gives us milk.

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Cow is a common noun (countable), but milk is a material noun (uncountable)

5. Abstract nouns

An abstract noun is the name of a quality, state, or concept:

beauty, sweetness, childhood, love

4 Note: Concrete nouns are names of material things, i.e. things having a material
form, shape or size. Abstract nouns are the names of qualities found in various
kinds of objects. Since they have no material form, they cannot be seen or
touched.

We can know of them only through our mind:

sugar wetness

Concrete nouns Abstract nouns

book beauty

milk hatred

Patna fear

We can see sugar but cannot see sweetness, so sugar is a concrete noun and
sweetness an abstract noun. In short, concrete nouns refer to physical properties
and abstract nouns to mental roperties.

Nouns: Countability

Nouns are of two kinds from the viewpoint of countability:

a) Countable nouns b) Uncountable nouns

Countable nouns Nouns that can be counted are called countable nouns:

a book one book two books

an egg one egg two eggs

Generally a noun used in answer to the question how many? is a countable noun:
How many films did you watch?

I watched six films.

How many flights are there from here to Delhi?

There are only two flights.

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Note: Common nouns and collective nouns are by and large countable.

Uncountable nouns

Nouns that cannot be counted are called uncountable nouns:

milk, water, ink, sugar, butter

(not, a milk, one water, two sugar)

A noun used in answer to the question how much? is an uncountable noun.

When we want to refer to the quantity of these items we use values of

measurement which are countable:

How much milk do you need?

We need a litre of milk.

Nouns: Gender

Gender is of four kinds:

Masculine (denotes male)

Feminine (denotes female)

Common (denotes both male and female)

Neuter (denotes neither male nor female)

Masculine Feminine Common Neuter

Boy girl student gold

Man woman teacher rice

Brother sister doctor flower

Note: The words masculine and feminine can be used as adjectives to describe
the looks or qualities of human beings. In this sense masculine means: having the
characterstics of a man, so it can be used of a woman or girl as well.

The lady standing in the centre has masculine looks.

Similarly with feminine. Notice that in this sense masculine/feminine indicates

characteristics or attributes, not sex.

Masculine and feminine forms

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The feminine of nouns is formed in two ways:

 By adding ess to the masculine form

 By adding she/girl/woman to the masculine form
 By adding ess to the masculine form.

Actor Actress

baron Baroness

count/earl Countess

duke Duchess

god Goddess

waiter waitress

Note:

a) English has only a small number of feminine forms (noun + ess).

Professional activities are often referred to in the common gender.

The feminine forms authoress, poetess, directress, inspectress are no longer in

use.

She is the director of this institute. (not, directress)

She is an inspector of police. (not, inspectress)

b) The feminine form of hero is heroine.

ii) By adding she/girl/woman

he-goat she-goat

boy-friend girl-friend

student woman student

businessman businesswoman

policeman policewoman

sportsman sportswoman

But in many cases, the feminine form is not derived from the masculine form. In
the examples listed below, the feminine form is a totally new word, not related to
the masculine form phonetically.

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boy – girl

brother – sister

bull/ox – cow

husband – wife

dog – bitch

Common/dual gender

Nouns denoting profession

Most of the nouns denoting profession/occupation are in the common gender:

ambassador doctor

minister pupil

collector lawyer

criminal magician

Noun: Cases

The case of a noun tells us about the position of that noun or pronoun in a
sentence. In English, there are five cases.

Nominative case: a noun is said to be in the nominative case if it is the subject of a

verb.

Ex- Ram is an intelligent boy.

Objective case: Nouns or Pronouns are said to be in objective case if they are the
direct object of verbs or the objects of the preposition.

Dative case: A noun is said to be in Dative case if it is the indirect object of the
verb.

Rohan brought me a flower. (‘Me’ is in dative case).

Possessive case: A noun is said to be in the possessive case if it denotes

possession or ownership.

Ex- This is your pencil. (‘your’ is in possessive case).

Vocative case : A noun or pronoun is said to be in vocative case if it is used to call

( or to get attention of a person or persons).

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Ex- Mr. Mallya, people are waiting for you in the hall. (Mr. Mallya is in vocative
case)

Plural of nouns

The plural of nouns is the form of a noun used to show there is more than one
person, place, thing, or idea. Most nouns simply add –s or –es to the end to
become plural.

Plural noun rules

There are many plural noun rules, and because we use nouns so frequently when
writing, it’s important to know all of them! The correct spelling of plurals usually
depends on what letter the singular noun ends in.

1-To make regular nouns plural, add –s to the end.

Ex: cat – cats / house – houses

2-If the singular noun ends in –s, –ss, –sh, –ch, –x, or –z, add -es to the end to
make it plural.

Ex: bus – buses / truss – trusses / marsh – marshes / lunch – lunches / tax – taxes

3-In some cases, singular nouns ending in –s or –z require that you double the –s
or –z prior to adding the –es for pluralization.

Ex: class – classes / fez – fezzes

4-If the noun ends with –f or –fe, the f or –fe are often changed to –ve before
adding the –s to form the plural version.

Ex: wife – wives / wolf – wolves

Plural noun exceptions

Ex: roof – roofs / belief – beliefs / chef – chefs

5-If a singular noun ends in –y and the letter before the –y is a consonant, change
the ending to –ies to make the noun plural.

Ex: city – cities / puppy – puppies

6-If the singular noun ends in –y and the letter before the –y is a vowel, simply add
an –s to make it plural.

Ex: ray – rays/ boy – boys

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7-If the singular noun ends in –o, add –es to make it plural.

Ex: potato – potatoes / tomato – tomatoes

8-Some nouns don`t change at all when they’repluralized.

Ex: sheep – sheep / series – series.

Plural noun rules for irregular nouns

Irregular nouns follow no specific rules, so it’s best to memorize these or look up
the proper pluralization in the dictionary.

Ex: child – children / goose – geese / man – men / woman – women etc.

GENERIC NOUNS

Generic nouns are nouns that refer to something in general or as a whole.

Ex: if you say ´´I love basketball games´´ it refers to all basketball games.

Generic nouns follow most of the grammar rules for nouns, but you still have to be
careful how you use them. In particular, it’s important to know what separates
generic nouns from other types of nouns.

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CONCLUSION

Finishing our work we conclude that nouns are words used as name of person,
place or things and every language has its own set of nouns.

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BIBLOGRAFIA

English Notes CTET_Teacher sadda, 2019, pag. 1 – 2 PDF

www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter/ San José State University Writing Center Written by

Daniel Scarpa – Nouns: The Basics

www.bankersadda.com

www.The plural of nouns.com

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MEMBERS OF THE GROUP

1. Nsimba Paulo L. António

2. Nsimba Eliseu Gonçalves
3. Maria Pascoal Kolo
4. Baptista
5.
6.
7.

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