Noun Grammar

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

Common nouns are either count or non-count. COUNT nouns can be "counted", as follows:

one pen, two pens, three pens, four pens...

NON-COUNT nouns, on the other hand, cannot be counted in this way:

one software, *two softwares, *three softwares, *four softwares...

From the point of view of grammar, this means that count nouns have singular as well as plural forms, whereas non-count nouns have only a singular form.

It also means that non-count nouns do not take a/an before them:

Count	Non-count
a pen	*a software

In general, non-count nouns are considered to refer to indivisible wholes. For this reason, they are sometimes called MASS nouns.

Some common nouns may be either count or non-count, depending on the kind of reference they have. For example, in I made a cake, cake is a count noun, and the a before it indicates singular number. However, in I like cake, the reference is less specific. It refers to "cake in general", and so cake is non-count in this sentence.

Pronouns are a major subclass of nouns. We call them a subclass of nouns because they can sometimes replace a noun in a sentence:

Noun	Pronoun
John got a new job	~He got a new job
Children should watch less television	~They should watch less television

In these examples the pronouns have the same reference as the nouns which they replace. In each case, they refer to people, and so we call them PERSONAL PRONOUNS. However, we also include in this group the pronoun it, although this pronoun does not usually refer to a person. There are three personal pronouns, and each has a singular and a plural form:

Person	Singular	Plural
1st	I	we
2nd	you	you
3rd	he/she/it	they

These pronouns also have another set of forms, which we show here:

Person	Singular	Plural
1st	me	us
2nd	you	you
3rd	him/her/it	them

The first set of forms (I, you, he...) exemplifies the SUBJECTIVE CASE, and the second set (me, you, him...) exemplifies the OBJECTIVE CASE. The distinction between the two cases relates to how they can be used in sentences. For instance, in our first example above, we say that he can replace John

John got a new job

~He got a new job

But he cannot replace John in I gave John a new job. Here, we have to use the objective form him: I gave him a new job.

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Other Types of Pronoun

As well as personal pronouns, there are many other types, which we summarise here.

Pronoun Type	Members of the Subclass	Example
Possessive	mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs	The white car is mine
Reflexive	myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, oneself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves	He injured himself playing football
Reciprocal	each other, one another	They really hate each other
Relative	that, which, who, whose, whom, where, when	The book that you gave me was really boring
Demonstrative	this, that, these, those	This is a new car
Interrogative	who, what, why, where, when, whatever	What did he say to you?
Indefinite	anything, anybody, anyone, something, somebody, someone, nothing, nobody, none, no one	There's something in my shoe

Case and number distinctions do not apply to all pronoun types. In fact, they apply only to personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, and reflexive pronouns. It is only in these types, too, that gender differences are shown (personal he/she, possessive his/hers, reflexive himself/herself). All other types are unvarying in their form.

Many of the pronouns listed above also belong to another word class - the class of determiners. They are pronouns when they occur independently, that is, without a noun following them, as in This is a new car. But when a noun follows them - This car is new - they are determiners. We will look at determiners in the next section.

A major difference between pronouns and nouns generally is that pronouns do not take the or a/an before them. Further, pronouns do not take adjectives before them, except in very restricted constructions involving some indefinite pronouns (a little something, a certain someone).

While the class of nouns as a whole is an open class, the subclass of pronouns is closed.