THE ENGLISH NOUN

 

    

THE ENGLISH NOUN

 

A noun is a part of speech that is used to indicate the name of a living being (person, animal, plant, etc.), place, inanimate objects, thing, or an idea. Nouns are an integral part of grammar in all languages. In Hindi, we have संज्ञा as equivalent of noun, in Bengali বিশেষ্য, in Russian существительное, and so on. 

As we have learned, generally sentences consist of two main components - an action (doing something) and a doer of the action. The words that denote doers of the action are termed as nouns or pronouns. Nouns are also the accessory words that we use in a sentence to convey a complete thought. Some examples of noun (in bold) are: 

Boys play football.

Sam is late again.

Please give me a pencil.

The Ganges is a mighty river.

We need to show kindness.

The parrot wants food. 

In this post we shall talk more about the nouns. 

Often nouns can be recognised by their endings. Typical noun endings include: 

Endings

Nouns

-er/-or

doctor, master, singer, river, projector, writer

-ism

capitalism, criticism, cynicism, patriotism, Hinduism

-ist

artist, capitalist, finalist, tourist, evangelist, scientist

-ment

argument, development, establishment, settlement,

-tion

accommodation, organisation, recognition, suggestion

-ess/-ness

actress, waitress, kindness, happiness, laziness

 

Countable and Uncountable Nouns: 

Let us examine the two sentences below- 

Please give me a pencil.

            The parrot wants food. 

We say ‘a pencil’ but do not say ‘a food’. This is because we can physically count a thing like  pencil but cannot count food. Nouns are grouped as countable and uncountable depending upon whether we can physically count them or not.

 Countable nouns are the names of objects, people, animals, etc. that we can count, e.g. house, table, pot, student, mango, tiger, and so on.   

Uncountable nouns are the names of things that cannot be counted, e.g. brightness, stupidity, milk, water, air, courage, honesty, and so on.


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