Nouns

Nouns are commonly thought of as "naming" words, and specifically as the names of "people, places, or things". Nouns such as John, London, and computer certainly fit this description, but the class of nouns is much broader than this. Nouns also denote abstract and intangible concepts such as birth, happiness, evolution, technology, management, imagination, revenge, politics, hope, cookery, sport, literacy....

Because of this enormous diversity of reference, it is not very useful to study nouns solely in terms of their meaning. It is much more fruitful to consider them from the point of view of their formal characteristics.

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Characteristics of Nouns

Many nouns can be recognised by their endings. Typical noun endings include:

-er/-or	actor, painter, plumber, writer
-ism	criticism, egotism, magnetism, vandalism
-ist	artist, capitalist, journalist, scientist
-ment	arrangement, development, establishment, government
-tion	foundation, organisation, recognition, supposition

Most nouns have distinctive SINGULAR and PLURAL forms. The plural of regular nouns is formed by adding -s to the singular:

Singular	Plural
car	cars
dog	dogs
house	houses

However, there are many irregular nouns which do not form the plural in this way:

Singular	Plural
man	men
child	children
sheep	sheep

The distinction between singular and plural is known as NUMBER CONTRAST.

We can recognise many nouns because they often have the, a, or an in front of them:

the car an artist a surprise the egg a review

These words are called determiners, which is the next word class we will look at.

Nouns may take an -'s ("apostrophe s") or GENITIVE MARKER to indicate possession:

the boy's pen a spider's web my girlfriend's brother John's house

If the noun already has an -s ending to mark the plural, then the genitive marker appears only as an apostrophe after the plural form:

the boys' pens the spiders' webs the Browns' house

The genitive marker should not be confused with the 's form of contracted verbs, as in John's a good boy (= John is a good boy).

Nouns often co-occur without a genitive marker between them:

rally car table top cheese grater University entrance examination

We will look at these in more detail later, when we discuss noun phrases.

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Common and Proper Nouns

Nouns which name specific people or places are known as PROPER NOUNS.

John Mary London France

Many names consist of more than one word:

John Wesley Queen Mary South Africa Atlantic Ocean Buckingham Palace

Proper nouns may also refer to times or to dates in the calendar:

January, February, Monday, Tuesday, Christmas, Thanksgiving

All other nouns are COMMON NOUNS.

Since proper nouns usually refer to something or someone unique, they do not normally take plurals. However, they may do so, especially when number is being specifically referred to:

there are three Davids in my class we met two Christmases ago

For the same reason, names of people and places are not normally preceded by determiners the or a/an, though they can be in certain circumstances:

it's nothing like the America I remember my brother is an Einstein at maths

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