Today we’ll be talking about the main characteristics of nouns.
Nouns can be characterized in a couple of ways, depending on which criteria you choose. So, one division would be into:
– common nouns: sugar, book, patience
– proper nouns: Paris, John, Jupyter
Nouns can be also divided into:
– count nouns: dog, man, chair
– noncount nouns: information, milk, anger
Here’s a video version of this article:
And now let’s have a look at the morphological, syntactic and semantic characteristics of nouns.
Morphological Characteristics of Nouns
Nouns are inflected for:
– number (only count nouns): cat – cats
– case: Steve – Steve’s
Nouns also differ in structure. Here the division is into:
– simple nouns: car, table, water
– derived nouns: friendship, hopelessness, helper
– compound nouns: fingernail, arrowhead, windscreen
Syntactic Characteristics
Nouns can occur as the head of a noun phrase: the most interesting movie I ever saw
Nouns can have different syntactic roles, e.g.:
– subject: Tom wants to know the truth.
– direct object: I just bought a house.
– indirect object: I gave your sister some flowers.
Semantic Characteristics
Nouns can denote different things:
– concrete entities: girl, car, water
– qualities: darkness, obedience, likelihood
– states: freedom, imprisonment, death
Nouns can have different semantic roles, like for example:
– agent: The doctor examined the patient and gave him some pills.
– recipient: He sold Luke his car.
– affected: They painted the fence.