Tigerpetal Press : Grammar : Nouns

Grammar : Nouns

Posted: January 9, 2024

In English, a sentence can be broken down into eight parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. While at times the same words can embody more than one part of speech, it’s the function that determines its classification.

Identification

The objective of a noun is to name. This can take many forms. It could name a person (William Shakespeare, teacher, George, Michael Jackson,), a place (village, Europe, New York, ocean), a thing (book, Mt. Vesuvius, armchair, house), or an idea (peace, love, hope).

From there, nouns can also be separated into different categories depending on how they behave. Often, nouns can belong to multiple groups.

Types of Nouns

Common Nouns

The most general class of nouns, common nouns name most things. They do not begin with capital letters

Fun Fact: In German, all nouns are capitalized. German is the only major language to capitalize its nouns.

e.g. baby
e.g. tree
e.g. weather
e.g. fire
e.g. building
e.g. mountain
e.g. [my] mom

Proper Nouns

These are specific people, places, and things such as the names of individuals, titles, named locations, brand names, organizations, etc. They always begin with a capital letter.

e.g. Vancouver
e.g. Ryan Reynolds
e.g. Supreme Court of Canada
e.g. Washington
e.g. Dr. Desmond
e.g. Starbucks
e.g. Mom [direct address]

Count Nouns

These are things that can be counted. To distinguish between singular and plural, these nouns change form, either by adding -s or -es, or by changing (irregular plurals).

Note: Some nouns, while not fully irregular, have form changes.

e.g. monkey; monkeys
e.g. fairy; fairies
e.g. woman; women
e.g. tooth; teeth
e.g. wife; wives
e.g. ox; oxen

Noncount Nouns

As the name suggests, these are nouns that cannot be counted. They either name items that aren’t considered countable, or they name qualities.

e.g. sugar
e.g. water
e.g. soil
e.g. chaos
e.g. time
e.g. money

Collective Nouns

Singular nouns that embody/name groups, whether large or small.

e.g. school
e.g. family
e.g. herd
e.g. army

Forming Possessives

To form a possessive, the most common way is simply to add -’s to the noun to show ownership, source, or some other relationship.

e.g. Olivia’s dolls
e.g. Wordsworth’s poems
e.g. citizen’s rights

Other possessives include his, her, your, our, and its.

e.g. The lion shook its mane.
e.g. Julian enjoyed reading his books.
e.g. Marcus is coming to our house later.

For further information, see my other Grammar articles:

Articles
Pronouns
Sentence Fragments

Nouns
Regional Differences

Sources:

Aaron, J.E. & Morrison, A. The Little, Brown Compact Handbook, 5th Canadian ed. Pearson, 2013, chap 5