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A NOUN is a word used to name a
person, animal, place, thing or idea.
Example: Fatmata, boy, family,
Moses, lion, cow, money, pen, luck, courage, Freedom, sorrow, love,
water
A COLLECTIVE NOUN is a noun that is singular
in form but stands for many individuals. Eg: crowd, audience, assembly,
class, family, army, public, jury, committee
A COMMON
NOUN gives general names to persons, places and things
Ex.
Boy, river, street, town, country, school, company.
A
PROPER NOUN gives particular names to persons, places and
things.
Ex. Thomas, River Sewa, Rawdon Street, Port Loko, Albert
Academy, National Insurance Company
A proper noun should start with a
����.
CONCRETE NOUNS exist in material form. Most
concrete nouns can be seen by the naked eye, or touched.
Ex. house,
pen, sand, ice, water, steam, air (note that air is concrete), shoes,
door
ABSTRACT NOUNS have no material form. They
cannot be seen or touched because they are simply nouns of ideas.
Ex.
Beauty, information, music, noise, peace, carelessness, democracy, prayer,
sorrow
COUNTABLE NOUNS are nouns that have
singular and plural forms.
Some types of countable nouns are:
a
girl, a mango, an apple, four stones, many fingers, an idea, some remarks,
a plan
Uncountable Nouns do not have a plural form, or their plural
forms are the same as the singular form. They are quantified by a word
that signified amount. They include:
Food,metal,and material:
bread,cotton, wood
Names of gases, liquid, and substances made of many
small particles: oil, smoke, oxygen, rice, sugar, salt, cement,
gravel
Some common uncountable nouns: Information, equipment,
advice, evidence, dirt, furniture, affection, stationery, luggage,
abuse
Some uncountable nouns can be countable with special
meanings: damages, properties, fishes, people
THE PLURAL OF
NOUNS
| Singular
|
Plural |
| street
|
streets |
| bus
|
buses |
| glass
|
glasses |
| a baby |
babies |
| valley
|
valleys |
| woman |
women |
| child
|
children |
| wife
|
wives |
| knife
|
knives |
| calf
|
calves |
| shelf
|
shelves |
| life
|
lives |
| leaf
|
leaves |
| half
|
halves |
| chief
|
chiefs |
| sheep |
sheep |
| personnel |
personnel |
| potato |
potatoes |
| photo |
photos |
| nucleus |
nuclei |
| analysis |
analyses |
| diagnosis |
diagnoses |
| crisis |
crises |
| goose |
geese |
| criterion |
criteria |
| foot |
feet |
| army |
armies |
| box |
boxes |
| mouse |
mice |
| tooth |
teeth |
| hero |
heroes |
| cargo |
cargoes |
| kiss |
kisses |
| equipment |
equipment |
| species |
species |
Some nouns go with "S" :
savings, thanks, steps, customs,
greetings, congratulations, tropics, spectacles, outskirts, goods,
measles, scissors
Exercise 1 Choose the correct
alternative
1.The headmaster warned the teacher to refrain from
giving��to the boys SC/GCE Nov. 1995
A. many bad advice B. bad advices
C. some bad advices D. bad advice
2. The customer complained about
�� on his plate.
A. dirt B. a dirt
C. many dirt s D. dirts WASSCE
Nov.2000
3. The philanthropist gave the club �
A. Little
stationeries B. a few stationery
C. some stationery D. some
stationeries
4. There is no ��.. in our classroom.
A. furnitures B.
furniture
C. a furniture D. any furniture SC/GCE Nov. 1985
5. The
Chairman thanked her for giving him�
A. an information B. some
informations
C. some information D. information
NOUN
GENDER
English nouns generally give masculine and feminine gender to
persons. All things are considered neuter.
MASCULINE
FEMININE
MASCULINE
FEMININE
actor
actress
fianc�
fianc�e
waiter
waitress
hero
heroine
prince
princess
nephew
niece
heir
heiress
bachelor
spinster
host
hostess bridegroom bride
Some nouns can be
used for either a feminine or masculine subject:
infant, cousin,
juvenile, teacher, doctor, teenager, parent, baby, orphan,
darling
Recognizing Nouns
It is important to see a noun and,
without doubt, recognize it instantly.
Sometimes a determiner can help
us identified a noun in a sentence.
Most determiners are regarded as
adjectives (at least to some extent), and they appear in front of a noun
to modify it.
Classes of Determiners
1.The Articles: a, an,
the
2. The Demonstratives:this, that,these, those
3. The
Possessives: my, your, his, her, its, our, your, their
4. The
quantifiers: much, many, little, few, several, a lot of, some, any, no,
more, most, fewer, less, enough, both
Since most determiners tend to
describe or modify nouns, it becomes easier to locate a noun very close to
where a determiner is. In most cases, when there is no other adjective
interrupting, a noun immediately follows a determiner.
Many words
with the following endings are nouns -ness, -tion, -ance, -ism, -ence,
-ity, -cide, -cracy, -ship:
ignorance, dryness, independence, stance,
patriotism, endurance, suicide, insecticide, democracy, friendship,
ownership, competition
Verb and Noun Forms
VERB
NOUN
VERB
NOUN
Prove
Proof
Decide decision
Advise
Advice
Prefer
preference
Married
marriage
Surprise surprise
Practise
practice
Abstain abstinence
Force
force
Abstain abstention
Strike
stroke
Accuse accusation
Choose
choice
Accuse accused
Lose
loss
Annoy
annoyance
Sing
song
Delay delay
Breathe
breath
Believe
belief
Approve approval Maintain maintenance
Note that the verb and noun
form of certain words are the same:
Please don't surprise me.
(verb)
I will surprise you. (verb)
This is a big surprise.
(noun)
They are trying to delay the matter. (verb)
She came after
some delay. (noun)
Do you believe that he said the truth ?
It is my
belief that he is not saying the truth.
Form nouns from the following
words:
Create, accurate, admire, compare, conclude, curious, deceive,
depart, describe, divide, enter, weigh, visit, succeed, resent, reveal,
famous, fly, hate, know, laugh, long, able, angry, apply, arrive,
beautiful, brave
Identify nouns in this passage
What impact will
the rapid developments in biotechnology, particularly in genetic
engineering, make on Africa's ecological and socio-economic systems. This
is the central question that African scientists, government,
policy-makers, the public and Africa-lovers are asking themselves
following the Zambian government decision to refuse genetically modified
food as aid.
Comprehension Questions
The outbreak of fire at
the famous Makola Market in Accra was a tragedy, despite the fact that,
happily, there was no loss of life.
(1) What is the grammatical name of
the expression a tragedy? SC/GCE Nov. 1998
(2) What is its function in
the sentence?
Smetsewa knew that Mr. Christian did not ever touch
a drop so she was aware that the man's eyes did not owe their current
strangeness to liquor. SC/GCE June 1996
(e)
strangeness
(1) What part-of-speech is this word ?
(2) What is its
function in the sentence?
Man has certainly completed a
cycle
(1) What grammatical term would you use to describe the
expression "a cycle" in the last sentence ?
(2) What is its function
?
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