Everything around us has a name. These names help us identify or differentiate between people, places, animals, or things. As you all know, our surroundings consist of different people, places, animals, and things. Everything in our surroundings is known by its unique name. The different names by which we identify things around us are known as nouns.
The noun is the name of a person, place, animal (including birds and insects), and things. In other words, all names or naming words are nouns. So, whenever we refer to a person, a place, an animal, or a thing, we use nouns.
#. A noun for a person
Example: A father, Teachers, a doctor, Gita, etc.
#. The naming words for a place
Example: Temple, Agra Fort, Park, School, etc.
#. The naming words for an animal
Example: Tigress, Cow, Herds, Dog, etc.
#. A noun for a thing
Example: Chalk, Blackboard, Car, Table, Utensils, Clothes, etc.
Through the above examples, we can clearly understand that a noun can be:
#. The name of a person.
#. The name of a place.
#. The name of an animal.
#. The name of a thing.
Remember: A noun refers to anything that is living, non-living, abstract, or concrete.
Micky and his dog are playing football in their garden.
Here, Micky is the name of a person.
A dog is a naming word for an animal.
Football is a noun referring to a thing.
A Garden is a noun for a place.
A name can be special or common. The special name of a noun is called a proper noun. Special names given to people, places, pets, days, moths, organisations, etc., are proper nouns.
For example, Manju skips every day.
Here, Manju is a special name given to a particular person. Hence, the name Manju here is a proper noun.
Person proper Noun: Vicky, Sonu, Bulbul, etc.
Animal Proper Noun: Pluto is the name of my pet. Here, Pluto is an animal proper noun.
Place Proper noun: Red fort, Hawa Mahal, Mumbai, Delhi, etc.
Thing proper Noun: Coca Cola, Uncle Chips, etc.
#. Names of cities, days, months, festivals, holidays, books, people, etc., are proper nouns.
#. A proper Noun starts with a capital letter.
Example: #. Shyam was walking along with his pet, Pluto.
#. We are at Red Fort.
What is a common noun? A general name of a person, place, animal, or thing is a common noun.
Example:
#. They live in a city.
Here, a city is a general name of a place.
#. I like teachers.
Here, a teacher is a general name given to a person.
#. It is his dog
A dog is a general name for the animal. Hence, it is a common noun.
#. Common nouns are not capitalized unless they begin a sentence or are part of a title.
#. All nouns have a common name and also that some nouns have a special name.
Let’s take an example.
A boy is roaming on the streets.
Here, the boy is a common noun that can be denoted to any boy in general. Whereas, if we say,
‘Rahul is roaming on the streets’, it becomes a proper noun.
Proper Noun Common Noun
Rahul Boy
Agra Fort Fort
Pluto Dog
Honda City Car
Anything that you can see, touch, smell, taste, or hear is concrete. Concrete nouns are words that refer to objects that we can feel with our five senses. It means the name of a matter that can be seen, smelt, heard, tasted, or touched is a concrete noun.
Different examples of concrete nouns are a mountain, incense sticks, candles, guitar, pizza, rain, etc.
Abstract nouns are the opposites of concrete nouns. It means all those names of a matter that cannot be seen, touched, heard, smelt, or tasted.
Abstract nouns can only be thought of or felt. An abstract noun refers to qualities, actions, and state of being. Abstract nouns are words that denote some idea, feelings, experiences, qualities, and concepts.
For example, An idea, love, anger, happiness, kindness, laughter, beauty, etc., are abstract nouns as they cannot be experienced with senses.
The countable noun refers to the objects that can be counted as separate units and can be specified using numbers. Countable nouns have plural forms.
Example: Spoons, students.
Uncountable nouns are objects that cannot be separated and counted individually. Uncountable nouns do not have a plural form.
Example: Snow, jam, flour.
A noun that names more than one person, place, animal, or thing is known as a collective noun. By definition, a collective noun is a word used to name a group of people, animals, or things.
Examples of collective nouns
A herd of cows.
A troupe of soldiers
A bouquet
A bunch of keys.
‘Here, the words used such as herd, bouquet, bunch, and the troupe are collective nouns.
Note: A collective noun is singular in form even though it names anything which is two or more than two. For example, a class of students, a deck of cards, a bunch of keys, etc.
Now after learning completely about nouns and types of nouns, let us try to understand what noun phrases are.
Noun phrases make the noun more specific.
When we say a girl, it is a common noun as the word girl is used in a generic sense. But if we alter the sentence as, ‘a girl in a red dress’, the noun ‘girl’ becomes quite specific.
Some examples of noun phrases
A car- A jet black car.
The boy- The short-heightened boy
A pencil box- My green coloured pencil box.
In the examples mentioned above, a noun is joined with a modifier describing the qualities of the particular noun. The use of modifiers makes the noun more specific.
A noun phrase consists of a noun or pronoun called the head (main noun or pronoun) and a dependent word (modifier) before or after the head.
Types of Noun Phrase
Example: Our friends- Friends is a common noun that can be made more specific by adding a determiner to it. Our friends. It doesn’t become a proper noun but makes it more specific.
Other examples
Pastries= These pastries
keys= The keys
Example: The black car is mine.
Here, the use of adjectives has made the common noun ‘car’ more specific.
Other Examples
House = new house
Tree= Tall tree
Example: All those books are mine.
Here All those books are a noun phrase.
Note: Noun phrases can function in several different ways in a sentence.
Example
The Yellow House
Your dark blue woollen jacket.
My favourite superhero
A noun is used in many different ways in a sentence. It can be used as a compliment, direct objective, subject, indirect objective, preposition, predicate, appositive, and many more.
Some examples of its uses are:
#. A subject in a sentence
Example: Children are hard working.
#. An object in a sentence
Example: Martial plays football.
Understanding the basic nuances of English grammar is important. It builds a strong foundation for English speaking, reading, and writing. The concept of nouns is essential for kids to grasp thoroughly. In this blog, we have explained every necessary detail about nouns with the help of examples to make it easier to understand the topic. The everyday and straightforward examples and easy language make it easier to understand the topic.
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