Nouns are an important part of vocabulary and they comprise of a large part of every language. Without nouns it is difficult for any language to work and they come in a wide range of types and functions like number and gender are rendered by them. Same is the case with English, they also grasp a large proportion of English vocabulary.
A noun is name of a person, place, thing, animal, feeling, object (Which exists or does not exist), location, concept, idea, event, beliefs etc.
A noun can be placed at the position of or perform a function of
Along with all these functions a noun has three characteristics
These are different common Kinds of noun
Common nouns are name of common person, place, thing, animal etc. In simple words all persons, places, things which have common qualities and features are called common nouns. For example book is similar with all other books in the world until unless they are not distinguished by their particular qualities they are common nouns. They are always written with small letter at the beginning and written with capital letter when they start a new sentence.
Examples
book, cat, car, bat, tree
Proper nouns are name of particular person, place, thing, animal etc. In simple words all person, places, things which do not have common qualities and features are called proper nouns. For example London is only city in the world it does not have another city with the same name and qualities in the world. They are always written with Capital letter whether they occur at the beginning, middle or end of the sentence.
Examples
Shakespeare, Norway, Taj Mahal, Big Ben
Collective nouns are used to name a group of persons, places, things etc. They represent a whole lot of things which are referred to. Generally they are singular like team, army, family and take singular subjects but some of them are used as plural like poeple, gentry, folk, police etc.
Examples
Concrete nouns are name of things which have material existance or bodily form. They represent physical objects rather than abstract. All the nouns like common nouns, proper nouns, collective nouns etc except abstract nouns are Concrete Nouns.
Examples
book, house, tree, jacket
Abstract nouns are name of ideas, actions, qualities, states, beliefs and other such things which do not have material existance or bodily form. In other words things which can not be touched, seen, felt or do not have physical existance.
Examples
wisdom, noise, excitement, confidence, knowledge
Possessive nouns show their own possession i.e something which they have or own. In most cases, they are formed by adding an apostrophe plus s like 's at the end of possessive noun. But if a noun showing possession ends in 's' or 'z' or sound of 's' (hissing sound) then only apostrophe (comma) is added. In some cases 'of' is used to show the possession of a noun. Sometimes possessive noun requires no apostrophe plus 's' or of to show its possession like hall door, shoe polish etc.
Examples
Compound noun is name of person, place, thing etc which is made of two or more words. For example toothpaste, haircut, battle-field, winter sports etc. Sometimes these words are written one word like toothpaste, bathroom and sometimes they are written separately like kitchen sink, football ground etc.
Examples
bedroom, birthday, winter sports, haircut
Countable noun also called count noun is one which can be counted. Countable noun can also be modified by determiners like each, every, several etc, adjectives like many, much, such and articles like a, an, the. They can be in both singular and plural forms.
Examples
boys, book, bench, cars,
Uncountable noun also called non-count noun is one which cannot be counted.. They also can be in both singular and plural forms and only article 'the' is used with them. Article 'a, an' cannot be used with them.
Examples
water, milk, sugar, happiness, tea, oil
Cases of a noun show its relationship with other words, its place and functions in a sentence. There are five noun cases which show how a noun relates to the other words in a sentence. They are
Gender of a noun tells us about sex group of a noun. There are four gender groups of nouns. They are
Number of a noun tells us about count, figure or quantity of a noun. The number of noun has two groups. They are