Types of Nouns: Nouns have a significant role in English vocabulary. They are a part of parts of speech in the vocabulary. They can be described as words that name an idea, thing, place, or a person. When you use nouns in a sentence, they play the role of object complement, adjective or appositive, subject complement, indirect object, direct object, subject.
There are different types of nouns. Understanding the rules of other nouns will help you identify the type of noun you have to use in a particular sentence.
Let us discuss the types of nouns now.
Proper Nouns
Proper nouns can be described as specific names for a particular name for a particular person, place, (companies), or thing or days of the week, months of the year. It would be best if you always capitalized Proper nouns in English wherever they are in a sentence. Proper nouns specify things precisely. It would be best not to use ‘the’ before proper nouns, but these have exceptions.
Example
- His name is Simon.
- I live in Switzerland.
- She works for Apple.
- The last day in December is Sunday.
- We saw Twilight in the Odeon Cinema.
Exceptional cases where ‘the’ is used before proper nouns:
You have to use “the” for the names that are made with “of”:
- the Tropic of Cancer
- the Statue of Liberty
- the Bank of France
You have to use “the” for country names, which include “States,” “Republic,” “Kingdom,” etc.:
- the USA
- the UK
- the
You have to use “the” for names of oceans, seas, rivers, and canals.
- the Pacific
- the Suez
- the Nile
You have to use “the” for plural names of places and people.
- the Alps
- the Clintons
- the Himalayas
Common Nouns
To explain easily, the nouns that are not a name are known as common nouns. Common nouns refer to things or people in general. A significant part of nouns is known as common nouns.
Examples
- Have you seen my cat?
- It is the pursuit of happiness.
- Thepens are on thedesk.
- Words like teacher, music, plane, water, sea, car are general nouns and not the names of place or person. So these are examples of common nouns.
Differences Between Proper And Common Nouns
- Proper nouns are specific.
- Common nouns are generic.
Example:
Name
- John, Sara – proper nouns
- Man, woman, boy, girl – common nouns
Place
- England, Manhattan, Sweden – proper nouns
- country, towns – common nouns
Days of the week
- months – common nouns
- Sunday, February – proper nouns
Film, books – common nouns
Despicable Me, War and Peace
- Company – common nouns
- Ford – proper nouns
- Restaurant, shop – common nouns
- Subway, Amazon – proper nouns
Proper Nouns Start with a Capital Letter Wherever They are in a Sentence
Common nouns start with a capital letter only when they are at the beginning of a sentence.
Common Nouns Types
Common nouns are further classified into some types. They are:
Abstract nouns: Abstract nouns are those in the mind that cannot be touched, felt or seen, meaning they have no physical reality. They refer to states of being, conditions, theories, relationships, qualities, and ideas. Your five senses will not detect abstract nouns- you cannot touch, hear, taste, smell or see it.
Example: Fear can be called an abstract noun as it is a feeling; though you can see what you are scared of, you may not see or feel the feeling.
Concrete nouns: These nouns are opposite to abstract nouns. These nouns exist physically and can be tasted, heard, smelled, touched, or seen. You can touch or see concrete nouns.
Examples: zoo, camel, tune, rain, coffee, building, beach.
Collective Nouns: As the name indicates, these nouns are used for a group of things or people. Collective nouns can be both plurals or single based on the sense of the sentences.
Examples: choir, group, team, party, pack, crowd, class, band.
Compound Nouns: Compound nouns are made of two or more words. Specific compound nouns are hyphenated whereas some are not; some combine words to form one word. If you want to pluralize the compound nouns, then pluralize its principal word. If a principal word is absent in the compound nouns, add es or s at the end of the compound.
Examples: paper-clip, forget-me-not, mother-in-law, washing machine, black market, snowman, anteater.
Examples for Plural Compound Nouns
Mothers-in-law, paper clips.
- Gender-Specific Nouns: These nouns specifically refer to genders like female or male.
Examples: wizard, uncle, grandfather, brother, master, man, prince, son; aunt, grandmother, sister, mistress, princess, daughter.
- Gerund: Gerunds are nouns that are formed from a verb. Words ending with ‘ing’ are gerunds. But not every ing word is gerund some present participles of verbs also will end with ‘ing,’ for example, I want baking powder.
Examples: Running, talking, guessing, baking, visiting.
- Non-countable Nouns bv: Also known as a mass noun but with no plural form.
Examples: ice, music, food, liquid, concept, particles.
- Countable Nouns: These are opposite to non-countable nouns. You can pluralize these nouns.
Example: device, vacation, zombie, coin argument, cat.
- Verbal Nouns: These nouns do not have verb-like properties even if they are derived from the verbs. These can be followed by a prepositional phrase, modified by adjectives and pluralized.
Example: a decision, an attack, by me, of men, drawing.
Other Types of Nouns
- Singular Nouns: These nouns talk about a single thing. Be it an idea, thing, place, or person.
Example: match, hero, ship, monkey, sock.
- Plural Nouns: These nouns talk about more than one thing. Be it an idea, thing, place, or person. They mostly end with s, ies, or es.
Example: matches, babies, cats, ships.
- Possessive Nouns: These nouns, as the name indicates, are possessive and show their ownership. These are different as they function as adjectives. You have to use apostrophes while creating these nouns.
Example: Student’s book, Beth’s cat. Mom’s car.
Now that you know different types of nouns let us see some techniques to identify a word as a noun.
Techniques of Recognizing a Noun
The techniques of recognizing a noun are:
- by identifying the ending of a word
- position of the word in a sentence
- the function of the word in a sentence
By Identifying the Ending of a Word
Some common endings in a word will help you identify it as a noun, for example:
- ness-happiness
- ment-appointment
- hood-childhood
- ity-nationality
- ation-relation
- ful-spoonful
This technique does not apply to all the endings of a word. For example, though the word spoonful has an ending with ful, here it is a noun, whereas the word careful has an ending with full, here it is an adjective.
Position Of The Word In A Sentence
You can recognize a noun by the position it is in a sentence. Nouns mostly come after the determiners like such, my, this, the, an, a.
- such stupidity
- my home
- this word
- the actor
- an afternoon
- a relief
Nouns often come after one or more adjectives
- a great relief
- a peaceful afternoon
- the tall, Indian doctor
- this difficult word
- my brown and white house
- such crass stupidity
The Function Of The Word In A Sentence
The nouns have some functions in a sentence.
Example
- it can be the subject of a verb: Actors work hard.
- It can be the object of a verb: She likes tea.
- It can be both subject and object of a verb: A Teacher teaches students.
But object or subject in a sentence is not always nouns. They can be a phrase or a pronoun. For example, in the My doctor works hard sentence, the doctor is the noun, but the subject is my doctor.
Types of Nouns
Now that we have seen types of nouns, let us know what nouns do in a sentence:
- They can be subjects: When nouns act as subjects, they will tell you what or whom a sentence is about. Every sentence should have a subject.
Example: The students have studied the grammar happily. – In this sentence, students act as subjects.
- They can be direct objects: The direct objects will receive the action of the active verb in a sentence.
Example: The students have studied the grammar happily.- In this sentence, grammar act as a direct object.
- They can be Indirect objects: The indirect object will tell you for whom or to whom the action verb is done in the sentence.
Example: He taught his friends grammar. – In this sentence, friends serve as an indirect object.
- They can be objects of prepositions: These nouns come after prepositions in prepositional phrases.
Example: His friends smiled with glee. –In this sentence, glee serves as the object of the preposition.
- They can be predicate nouns: Here, they come after linking verbs in a given sentence.
Example: Those were grammar champions. In this sentence, champions serve as the predicate nouns.
- They can be objective complements: They complete the direct object in a sentence.
Example: They have elected my aunt mayor Here, the mayor serves as an objective complement in the sentence.
- They can be Appositives: This means that they can rename other nouns in a sentence.
Example: My sister Shelley likes candies.- In this sentence, Shelly is the appositive. Shelly renames the subject friend in the sentence.
Conclusion on Types of Nouns
Now that you have seen what nouns are, their type, easy identification, and functionality in a sentence, you might have understood that nouns are significant. Understanding nouns is essential because it refers to those words in a sentence giving a clear meaning. Nouns help in giving out good communication, and their absence will make sentences mostly meaningless. Make use of different types of nouns based on necessity in your sentences, and whenever you come across a sentence, try to identify the type of noun used in it.