Nouns

            A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and abstract idea.  As a general rule, children’s first words are nouns.  In sentences, a noun can function as a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, a subject complement, an object compliment, an appositive, or an adverb.

            There are many different types of nouns.  A proper noun is a noun that represents the name of a specific person, place, or thing and usually begins with a capital letter.  A proper noun can also be the names of the days of the week, months, historical documents, institutions, organizations, religions, their holy texts, and their adherents are proper nouns.

            A common noun is a noun that refers to a person, place, or thing in a general sense- usually, you should write it with a capital letter only when it begins a sentence.  A common noun is the opposite of a proper noun.  At times, you can make proper nouns out of common nouns if you are actually referring to the name of a person, place, or thing.  Examples of common nouns are bolded in the following sentences:  Many child-care workers are underpaid.  The tenants in the Garnet Apartments are appealing the large and sudden increase in their rent.

            A concrete noun is a noun that names anything or anyone that you can perceive through your physical senses of touch, sight, taste, sharing, or smell.  Examples of concrete nouns are in bold.  The judge handed the files to the clerk.

   An abstract noun is a noun that names anything that you cannot perceive through your five physical senses and is the opposite of a concrete noun.  An example of an abstract noun is in bold.  Justice often seems to slip out of our grasp.

            A countable noun is a noun with both a singular and a plural form, and it names anything or anyone that you can count.  Examples of countable nouns are in bold.  We painted the table red and the chairs blue.

            A non-countable noun is a noun that does not have a plural form and refers to something that you could not usually count.  A non-countable noun always takes a singular verb in a sentence.  Non-countable nouns are similar to collective nouns and are the opposite of countable nouns.  An example of a non-countable noun is in bold in the following sentence.  Oxygen is essential to human life.

            A collective noun is a noun naming a group of things, animals, or persons.  You could count the individual members of the group, but you usually think of a group as a whole and generally as one unit.  When using collective nouns in sentences, subject-verb agreement needs to be maintained.  A collective is similar to a non-countable noun and roughly the opposite of a countable noun.  An example of a collective noun is in bold in the following sentence.  The class was startled by the bursting light bulb.  In this sentence, the collective noun “class” takes a singular compound verb.

            Most nouns change their form to indicate number by adding “-s” or “-es” as illustrated in the following pairs of sentences: He tripped over a box left carelessly in the hallway.  Since we are moving, we will need many boxes.