To speak the English language fluently you need to understand about nouns.
Knowingly or unknowingly you use nouns more often in everyday life than you know.
What is a noun?
A noun is a person, place, or thing. The category of things may sound super vague, but in this case it means inanimate objects, abstract concepts, and activities.
The 5 major types of noun that is used in daily life are
#1 Proper noun
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity, such as London, Jupiter, Sarah, or Microsoft, as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (city, planet, person, corporation) and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class (a city, another planet, these persons, our corporation).
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Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique (the Hendersons, the Everglades, the Azores, the Pleiades).
Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns (the Mozart experience; his Azores adventure), or in the role of common nouns (he's no Pavarotti; a few would-be Napoleons).
The detailed definition of the term is problematic and, to an extent, governed by convention.
A distinction is normally made in current linguistics between proper nouns and proper names.
By this strict distinction, because the term noun is used for a class of single words (tree, beauty), only single-word proper names are proper nouns: Peter and Africa are both proper names and proper nouns; but Peter the Great and South Africa, while they are proper names, are not proper nouns.
#2 Common nouns
A common noun is the generic name for a person, place, or thing in a class or group.
Unlike proper nouns, a common noun is not capitalized unless it either begins a sentence or appears in a title.
Common nouns can be concrete (perceptible to the senses), abstract (involving general ideas or qualities), or collective (referring to a group or collection).
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For example
In 1789, the tenure of President George Washington began.
In the penultimate example, the fact that George Washington is named at the beginning of the sentence may tempt you to capitalize president afterward, but you must resist this temptation.
Here, George Washington is referred to as the first president of the United States—that is, the first in a number of presidents of the United States. Thus, in that example, the president is a common noun.
#3 Abstract nouns
Abstract nouns are words that name things that are not concrete. Your five physical senses cannot detect an abstract noun – you can’t see it, smell it, taste it, hear it, or touch it.
In essence, an abstract noun is a quality, a concept, an idea, or maybe even an event.
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Abstract nouns and concrete nouns are usually defined in terms of one another.
Something abstract exists only in the mind, while something that is concrete can be interacted with physically.
Qualities, relationships, theories, conditions, and states of being are some examples of the types of things abstract nouns define.
Although you may not realize it, you experience abstract nouns every day and in many different types of situations.
For example
- Love, fear, anger, joy, excitement, and other emotions are abstract nouns.
- Courage, bravery, cowardice, and other such states are abstract nouns.
- Desire, creativity, uncertainty, and other innate feelings are abstract nouns.
These are just a few examples of non-concrete words that are sensed.
The following sentences contain abstract noun examples which have been italicized for easy identification.
Notice that although the ideas expressed are real, they are things you can’t see, touch, taste, smell, or hear.
- I want to see justice served.
- I’d like the freedom to travel all over the world.
- Joe felt a nagging sense of doom.
- Love is a kind of irresistible desire; it’s hard to define.
- When Sarah jumped into the lake to rescue a drowning cat, her bravery astonished onlookers.
#4 Possessive noun
Possessive nouns are nouns that show ownership or possession.
Normally these words would be a singular or plural noun, but in the possessive form they are used as adjectives to modify another noun or pronoun.
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For example
The cat's fur is a matted mess.
Here the word “cat’s” is a possessive noun.
It is letting you know that the noun “fur” belongs to the cat.
The cat owns the fur.
Recognizing possessive nouns is easy because they always show an apostrophe.
Here are a few examples.
- The gerbil’s cage needed cleaning.
- The cars’ bumpers were locked in the traffic jam.
- The girls’ toys were lined up neatly on the shelf.
- The cat’s bowl is filled with cheeseburgers.
- The dogs’ bowls are filled with hotdogs.
However, depending on if the noun is singular or possessive, you may need to add an apostrophe and the letter “s” or just an apostrophe.
#5 Collective noun
In linguistics, a collective noun refers to a collection of things taken as a whole.
Most collective nouns in everyday speech are mundane and not specific to just one kind, such as the word "group", which is applied to "people" in the phrase "a group of people", but is also applied to "dogs" in the phrase "a group of dogs".
Some collective nouns are specific to one kind, especially terms of venery, which identify specific groups of animals.
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For example
"pride" as a term of venery always refers to lions, never to dogs or cows. Other specific examples come from popular culture such as a group of owls, which is called a "parliament".
Collective nouns are a class all their own. The bolded text in the following examples represent Collective nouns.
- Our class took a field trip to the natural history museum.
- The herd of bison ran across the prairie, leaving a massive dust cloud in its wake.
- We waited anxiously for the jury to come to a verdict.
- This year’s basketball team includes three players who are over six feet tall.
- Napoleon’s army was finally defeated at Waterloo.
- The town council has approved plans to create a new park.
- He comes from a huge family: he’s the oldest of eleven kids.
- The rock group has been on tour for months.
- Everyone in the audience applauded loudly when Elvis appeared on stage.
We hope now you know the difference between these nouns that we encounter daily.
Special thanks to Grammar Monster for providing such great educational images, for more English grammar concepts make sure to check them out.
Signing off for now till next time.
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