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Basics of Noun

English ( Master) Nouns

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Basics of Noun

NOUN-(Naming Word)

Nouns

A noun is a word used as the name of a person place or thing like—Ram, Shimla, book, chair, Respect, etc.

Classifications of Nouns

There are five parts of Noun:

1. Common Noun

2. Proper Nouns

3. Collective Nouns

4. Material Nouns

5. Abstract Nouns

1. Common noun are the names given in common to all persons, places or things like------ boy, girl, teacher etc.

2. Proper nouns are the names of particular person, places or things like--- Hari, Chandigarh, Sita etc.

3. Collective Noun - A collective noun is the name of a group (or collection) of persons animals or things regarded as a whole e.g---- crowd, mob, team, army committee etc.

Crowd_________________________ A group of People

Army__________________________ A group of Soldier

Flock__________________________ A group of Sheep.

Herd__________________________ A group of Cattle.

Pod___________________________ A group of Whales.

4. Material Noun- A Material Noun is the name of material, substance or ingredient which things are made of e.g- Gold, Iron, Silver, Milk etc.

The cow gives us milk.

Cow is a common noun and Milk is a material noun.

5. Abstract Nouns- An abstract noun is usually the name of a quality, action, or state etc. e.g---- Quality -------Honesty, Bravery, Goodness-Kindness-Sympathy,

Action-- Laughter, denial refusal, Judgment, hatred etc.

State- Poverty, Prosperity, Loneliness, Childhood, death.

Noun: Gender

The word gender is derived from Latin word ‘genus’ and it means ‘kind’ or ‘sort’. Gender denotes whether a person or an animal is male or female.

Kinds of Gender

(i) Masculine Gender

(II) Feminine Gender

(III) Common Gender

(IV) Neuter Gender

Ways of Forming the Feminine of Nouns

There are mainly three ways of forming the feminine of nouns:

(i) By using an entirely different word: For example,

Son	daughter
Boy	girl
Man	woman
Brother	sister
Bachelor	maid
Father	mother
Grandfather	grandmother
Husband	wife
Uncle	aunt
Nephew	niece
King	queen
Lord	lady
Horse	mare
Dog	bitch
Cock	hen
Bull	cow etc.

By using 's' or 'es' in plural form

Host	hostess
Prophet	prophetess
Hero	heroine
Testator	testatric
Sultan	sultana
Duke	duchess
Lion	lioness
Shepherd	shepherd

Rule 1

A proper noun becomes a common noun when it is used in the plural form, or when an article is placed before it. For example, look at the sentences given below:

There are five Gandhi’s in our college.

Vinay Kumar is the Milton of our college.

Rule 2

Proper nouns are always written with a capital letter at the beginning. For example,
The committee consists of five members.
The family living next door has come from Chennai.
Note that if we refer to the members of the committee or family separately, the collective noun) remains singular in form.

For example,

The committees have taken their seats.

Here the word ‘committee’ refers to the ‘members’ of the committee, who have taken their seats.

Rule 3

Material nouns are not used in the plural. For example, tin wood, iron, silver etc.

But whenever they are in the plural, they become common nouns with changed meaning. like wood means material and woods means forest.

Rule 4

When the words-score, dozen, hundred, thousand etc, are preceded by any other word denoting number, they take no plural form. For example, look at the following sentences:

For example,

He has three dozen pencils.

Sachin made two hundred runs.

But when they are not preceded by any word denoting number they take plural form

Scores of people were there.

Hundreds of men were arrested.

Thousands of boys assembled to hear the speech

Dozens of seats are vacant.

Rule 5

Some nouns have the same form for the plural as well as for the singular

For example, the following are some nouns that belong to this category.

Sheep, deer, species, aircraft, offspring, yoke, space, craft, salmon, hair, apparatus, series, fish, crops, swine, gross, means (way) etc.

The number of the above words should be distinguished bytheir preceding adjectives/articles if the preceding words (these, those, ten, twenty etc) indicate plurality

For example

Two deer were caught.

Many sheep are grazing in the field.

He has made a series of mistakes.

Every means has been tried.

Ram is using an apparatus.

The apparatus kept in the science laboratory are new.

His hair is black.

Rule 6

Physics, Economics, ethics, Mathematics, News, Innings, Politics, Summons, Mumps, measles, Rickets, shingles, Billiards, Athletics, Linguistics are certain nouns that are plural in form but singular in meaning. They take singular verb.

E.g :

No news is good news.

Politics is a dirty game.

Ethics demands honesty.

Economics is an interesting subject.

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