Nouns

According to the traditional definition noun is a name of a person, place or a name of a thing. Basically nouns can be categorized as common nouns and proper nouns.

The large majority of nouns are common nouns which are things in common or the people in general. Eg: boy, girl, mango, book, car etc.

Proper nouns are the specific persons, specific things and specific places. Eg: Japan, Sri Lanka, Nimal, World War I etc.

 * Important – the first letter of a proper noun must be written in a capital letter.

Nouns can be categorized again in two fold as follows.

·         Count nouns (countable)

·         Non count nouns (uncountable)

Words like chair, boy, girl are called count nouns and words like water, butter, milk represent the category of non count nouns. Yet some nouns have dual membership. Those can be uses as countable as well as uncountable. For example nouns like trouble, experience, effort etc. 

I had much trouble last year. (Countable)

I am having troubles all the time.  (Uncountable)

Again nouns can be divided into two folds as concrete nouns and abstract nouns. The nouns that can be touched, felt and smelled go under the category of concrete nouns. And at the same time nouns that cannot be touché, felt and smelled become abstract nouns. For example, happiness, sadness, courage etc. Yet some nouns can have dual membership. And those can be concrete as well as abstract. For example nouns like God, devil, oxygen etc

  Proper nouns

1.       Personal names: John, Mary etc

2.       Family names : Gamage, Silva, Herath

3.       Days of the week and names of the months : Monday …

4.       Religious festivals : Christmas, Poya Day …

5.       Geographical names such as names of continents, mountains, hills, lakes etc

6.       Some manmade institutes such as names of hotels, cinema theatre,

7.       Names of magazines and newspapers.

Inflectional Paradigm for nouns

Base (x)   - boy

Plural (x+s) – boys

Possessive singular (s + ’s) – boy’s

Possessive plural (x+ s’) – boys’ 

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