There are FOUR KINDS OF NOUNS –
COLLECTIVE Nouns and
refers to any one of a number of things of the same kind, such as as: “man”, “country”, “lake” or “cloud”. “Common” comes from a Latin word meaning “shared by several”.
is a name for one particular thing. “Proper” comes from a Latin word meaning “own”. (Think of property; somebody owns the property.) Thus a Proper noun can be given to only one thing at a time; it is an owned name. A Proper noun begins with a capital letter, as “John”, “Australia”.
is a name for a group of similar things, the group forming one complete whole. Example: “There are many sheep in the field but there is only one flock of sheep.” In this sentence sheep is a Common noun, because it may stand for any one and every one sheep, but flock is a Collective noun, as it stands for all the sheep at once, and not for any one sheep on its own.
is the name given to something which has no substance, that is, to something which cannot be seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted. Examples are “poverty”, “humility”, “goodness”, “laughter” and “hardness”.
We know that a stone is hard. We know that iron is hard. We know that a brick is hard. We can speak of hardness as being a quality apart from the stone, the iron, and the brick, or any other object having the same quality. We can put our hands on the stone, the iron and the brick,, but there is nothing to see or touch when we think of hardness. We can go to the store and buy some stones or bricks or iron, but we cannot buy any hardness as it does not exist. We can think of stones and iron and bricks as having substance, whereas hardness has no substance. So, hardness is called an abstract noun.
Other examples are: childhood, kingship, service, sight, fear, hope - and so on
The following words are all nouns, as they refer to the names of PERSONS:
Tom. Dick. Harry, Jenny, Joan, Jean, Kenneth, William, Thomas, Ronald, Rita, Reg.
These nouns all begin with a capital letter, which shows they are owned by somebody; they refer to a particular person, not just to anyone in general.
Words such as man, woman, boy, girl, lad, lass, child, baby, person, people, are also nouns, but they are not owned by any particular person; the names are common to many people. So these words are all common nouns.
Note especially that the names are words, not persons. It is the words that are nouns, not the persons.
The following words are all nouns as they refer to the names of PLACES:
Perth, Adelaide, Midland, Stratton, Australia, Holland, England, America, Timor.
Note that these nouns all begin with a capital letter. This indicates that they are all owned names. So they are all Proper nouns.
But words such as river, mountain, lake, road, street, town, country, village, city are names that belong to any number of such things, or places; they are common to many things. So they are all called Common nouns.
Words such as hill, tree, river, bank, house, table, chair, knife, spoon, eggs, hens, bed, cat, dog, are all nouns as they are the names of THINGS. These names are common to a great many such things, so they are called Common nouns.
But names such as Swan River, Commonwealth Bank, Mount Everest, Morrison Road, are Proper nouns, as the names refer to particular things; they are owned names.
The following words are all nouns because they refer to the names of THINGS.
They are all nouns; each one names something: chair, table, dishes, computer, knife, meal, car, dog, garden, cloud, flower, tree. These names are all called Common nouns.
EXERCISE
1. Read through the following paragraph. Then underline the nouns. (There are 15 nouns altogether.)
Once upon a time, Hans Hannekemaaier, with a scythe on his back, came into the land near Edam Town where they make cheeses. How he stared his eyes out! The meadows were so lush and green, and the cows so big, The farmers, long pipes in their mouths, were strolling about the fields with a lordly air.
Now make a list of all the nouns and beside each one write what kind of a noun it is – Common noun, (Common nouns are everywhere, and you use them all the time, even if you don’t realize it. Wherever you go, you’ll find at least one common noun. Street, closet, bathroom, school, mall, gas station; all of these places are named using common nouns).
People in general are named using common nouns, though their official titles or given names are proper nouns. When we refer to people using common nouns, we use words like teacher, clerk, police officer, preacher, delivery driver, boyfriend, girlfriend, grandma, cousin, and barista.
Collective nouns You might not know it, but you encounter collective nouns in everyday speech. Collective nouns are words for single things that are made up of more than one person, animal, place, thing, or idea. You can’t have a team without individual members; even so, we discuss a team as a single entity.
http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/nouns/collective-nouns/
Abstract nouns are words that name things that are not concrete. Your five physical senses cannot detect an abstract noun – you can’t see it, smell it, taste it, hear it, or touch it. In essence, an abstract noun is a quality, a concept, an idea, or maybe even an event.
Abstract nouns and concrete nouns are usually defined in terms of one another. Something that is abstract exists only in the mind, while something that is concrete can be interacted with in a physical way. Qualities, relationships, theories, conditions, and states of being are some examples of the types of things abstract nouns define.
http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/nouns/abstract-nouns/
Two of the nouns are worked for you.
Noun Kind of Noun
1. time Abstract noun
2. Hans Hannekemaaier Proper noun
advice |
anger |
belief |
bigotry |
communication |
compassion |
darkness |
death |
fear |
freedom |
friendship |
gratitude |
happiness |
hatred |
help |
heroism |
history |
honesty |
hope |
infancy |
jealousy |
knowledge |
life |
love |
loyalty |
manhood |
misery |
peace |
pride |
poverty |
power |
promise |
reality |
redemption |
regret |
religion |
troupe |
trust |
wealth |
wisdom |
army |
audience |
band |
bevy |
bouquet |
brood |
bunch |
caravan |
cartload |
choir |
clan |
colony |
congregation |
corps |
drove |
family |
flock |
gaggle |
gang |
group |
herd |
jury |
mob |
pack |
panel |
range |
regiment |
school |
squadron |
swarm |
team |
village |
aftermath |
anyone |
blackboard |
board of directors |
bodyguard |
court-martial |
daughter-in-law |
earthworm |
eyeglasses |
father-in-law |
forget-me-not |
grandfather |
grasshopper |
homemade |
inside |
jellyfish |
jigsaw |
keyboard |
kneecap |
lifetime |
moonlight |
mother-in-law |
New York |
overthrow |
paperclip |
photograph |
pickpocket |
pigtails |
plaything |
quicksand |
railroad |
rattlesnake |
somewhere |
snowflake |
sunlight |
tablecloth |
upstream |
uplift |
wheelchair |
windpipe |
aardvark |
banana |
bed |
bird |
book |
cat |
clock |
cookie |
country |
dog |
eyes |
flowers |
house |
light |
match |
movie |
ocean |
panther |
pen |
phone |
photograph |
planet |
rain |
speaker |
sun |
suitcase |
sunset |
train |
ukulele |
violin |
walnuts |
xylophone |
air |
beer |
blood |
butter |
cheese |
clutter |
currency |
economics |
electricity |
flour |
food |
garbage |
gas |
ground |
homework |
honey |
information |
insurance |
juice |
lightning |
milk |
mud |
music |
news |
rain |
rice |
sand |
snow |
timber |
water |
weather |
wood |
acting |
asking |
boating |
bowling |
camping |
climbing |
crawling |
dancing |
deceiving |
destroying |
eating |
fishing |
flying |
golfing |
growing |
hiking |
hopping |
hunting |
hurting |
inserting |
jogging |
jumping |
kayaking |
living |
making |
moaning |
naming |
opening |
painting |
parasailing |
placing |
plotting |
questioning |
razing |
rollerblading |
rolling |
running |
shopping |
skiing |
smoking |
snorkeling |
surfing |
swimming |
talking |
traveling |
watching |
watering |
yodeling |
Africa |
Atlantic Ocean |
Australia |
Beethoven |
Big Ben |
Chile |
Clark Gable |
Conoco |
Disneyland |
Elizabeth Taylor |
Fluffy |
Halley’s Comet |
Honda |
January |
Jupiter |
King Tut |
Lake Eerie |
La-Z-Boy |
Minnesota |
Michael |
Minnesota |
Mount Everest |
Nelson Mandela |
Notre Dame |
Peking |
Quebec |
Rio Grande |
Rocky Mountains |
September |
Stanford University |
Starbucks |
Susan |
The New York Times |
The Tower of London |
Uncle George |
United Nations |
United States |
Vincent van Gogh |
Xerox |
Zeus |
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Please note there are some excellent links to assist with these pages
see at the end for the links for further information.
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