Parts of Speech: Nouns

To be a decent writer, one must be familiar with the building blocks of language. The most fundamental of those building blocks are the parts of speech.

Nouns are just one of the eight parts of speech in the English language.

Etymology

The word “noun” comes from the Latin word nomen, which means “name,” and this is fitting, since the main purpose of nouns is to name things.

Definition of Noun

The formal and traditional grammatical definition of noun as a part of speech in the English language may vary from definitions in other languages. Noun is commonly defined as a word that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, or idea.

However, this definition may be limited in scope.

According to Wikipedia:

Contemporary linguists generally agree that one cannot successfully define nouns (or other grammatical categories) in terms of what sort of object in the world they refer to or signify. Part of the conundrum is that the definition makes use of relatively general nouns (“thing,” “phenomenon,” “event”) to define what nouns are.

For example, green is both a color (and therefore could be seen as a noun) and a descriptive word (which would be considered an adjective). In this sense, the person-place-thing definition of noun is lacking and fails to address the complexity of a noun as one of the parts of speech.

Many nouns double as other parts of speech. A good example of this is the word run. You can run (verb) or you can go for a run (noun).

Parts of Speech and Sub-classes

Many parts of speech can be separated into various sub-classes. There are a number of different sub-classes of nouns.

Proper and Common Nouns

Proper nouns identify unique or specific entities. Many proper nouns are the names of people or places. For this reason, an alternative term for proper nouns is proper names.

Examples of proper nouns include names of people (John, Jane, Fluffy, American) and places (Mexico, Paris, Antarctica, Jupiter). These differ from common nouns that simply refer to people in general (person, people, individual, group) and places in general (country, city, continent, planet).

In most sentences, a common noun requires an article or limiting modifier:

• I see a person.
• This is for the people
• That individual is writing.
• Two groups are reading.

Conversely, proper nouns don’t normally take articles and limiting modifiers.

• I’ve been to Mexico.
• Are you going to Paris?
• Where is Antarctica?
• Can you see Jupiter in the sky?

Proper nouns may also be used to refer to the names of important items, such as the U.S. Constitution.

Proper nouns are almost always capitalized in English.

The Internet is often capitalized because it is seen as a specific place or location. However, capitalization of Internet is a style, not a grammar, issue.

Finally, some proper nouns are homophones with common nouns. For example, God (capitalized) refers to a specific deity whereas god (not capitalized) would indicate some or any deity.

Countable and Uncountable Nouns

Some nouns can be pluralized and others cannot. Those nouns that can be counted are countable nouns. The ones that can’t be counted are uncountable nouns.

Countable nouns can also be connected with quantifiers that indicate quantity.

• There is one person.
• I have five apples.
• He ate some bananas.

Uncountable nouns are also called mass nouns or non-count nouns. They never take plural form and cannot be connected to quantifiers that indicate quantity. Examples of uncountable nouns include the following:

• Love (as emotion or feeling)
• Music
• Advice
• Luggage
• Electricity

Collective Nouns

Collective nouns are easy to identify because they refer to groups (thus, collective). The following are examples of collective nouns note that they include pluralized, countable nouns):

• Gaggle (of geese)
• Colony
• Board (of Directors)
• Cars

It’s important in writing that there is agreement between a collective noun and any connected predicates.

Ex: The colony traveled with each other.

In the sentence above, colony is a collective noun so the predicate must take a plural subject (each other). You cannot say “The director talked to each other” because “director” is not collective but “each other” is.

Concrete and Abstract Nouns

Concrete and abstract nouns are talked about frequently. To put it simply, concrete nouns have physical bodies. We can interact with them with at least one of our senses (see, hear, taste, smell, touch).

On the other hand, abstract nouns identify things that we cannot see, hear, taste, smell, or touch. Examples of abstract nouns include feelings and ideals – love, hate, freedom.

Differentiating between concrete and abstract nouns is harder than it sounds. For example, is art concrete or abstract? Does it depend on how it’s used in context?

Many abstract nouns end with suffixes such as -ness, -ity, and -tion. In some cases, these suffixes can be added to concrete nouns to form abstract nouns.

Learning Parts of Speech

It can take time learn all the parts of speech, especially when, like nouns, they have so many sub-classes, which should also be learned. However, developing an understanding of the language from a technical perspective will help you become a better writer because you’ll have a more thorough knowledge of the tools at your disposal and you’ll better understand how to use them.