NOUNS
Kinds and function
There are four kinds of nouns in the English language:
-common: book, man, chair, finger
-proper: Italy, Moscow, Mrs Brown, Ann
-abstract: hope, love, fear, jealousy, adulthood
-collective: crowd, team, group, flock, family, jury
A noun can function as:
-subject, object, complement of the verb be, become, seem, object of the
preposition
e.g. John arrived.
e.g. I saw John this morning.
e.g. Her best friend is John.
e.g. I looked at John.
Nouns can also be in the possessive case: John’s friends, women’s clothes,
students’ books
Gender
In English, most nouns don’t have gender. The exceptions are those that
denote specifically male or female people or animals.
1)Masculine-men, boys and male animals (pronoun he/they/his/their)
father, boyfriend, prince, duke, earl, lord, nephew, widower,rooster, stallion,
lion
2) Feminine –women, girls and female animals (pronoun she /they/her/their)
queen, actress, princess, duchess, countess, lady, niece, mother, widow,
hen, mare, lioness
3) Neuter: inanimate things, animals whose sex we don’t know, babies whose
sex we don’t know (pronoun it/they/its/their)
table, wall, paper, baby, ant, cat, substance, iron….
Exception: ships or cars can be feminine to show familiarity.
Occupation- Majority of nouns indicating occupation have the same form:
artist, cook, driver, guide, doctor, teacher,
Exception-actor, actress, manager, manageress, heir, heiress, host, hostess…
Plurals
1.Most nouns are made plural using –s
book, books, table, tables, girl, girls, day, days…
2. The –es ending is found in nouns ending in o*, ch, sh, s, ss, x in their
singular form
brushes, churches, kisses, boxes, watches, glasses, buses, dishes, potatoes,
tomatoes, heroes, echoes…
*Exception: nouns of foreign origin or abbreviated nouns (kimonos, studios,
folios, scenarios, photos, kilos, pianos)
However, double forms are sometimes possible: frescos, frescoes, flamingos,
flamingoes, grottos, grottoes
3. y/ies
country, countries, baby, babies, fly, flies, lady, ladies, story, stories
4. f-ves
Twelve nouns change f to v before -es : loaf, loaves, wife, wives, knife,
knives,…sheaf, wolf, shelf, self, half, thief, calf, leaf, life
-scarf, hoof, wharf (kej) both forms
Other nouns ending in –f only receive -s: cliffs, roofs, proofs, chiefs, safes,
handkerchiefs…
5. Vowel change occurs in foot-feet, louse-lice, mouse-mice, woman-women,
man-men, tooth-teeth, goose-geese
6. Irregular forms occur with child-children, ox-oxen
7. No change: fish, deer, sheep, means, series, species, gas-works, cross-roads
aircraft, craft, counsel (=barristers working in court)
8.Words of Greek/Latin origin usually retain their original plural form:
basis, bases, thesis, theses, analysis, analyses, oasis, oases, crisis, crises,
datum, data, bacterium, bacteria, fungus, fungi, criterion, criteria,
phenomenon, phenomena, nucleus, nuclei, …
Exception: dogmas, formulas,
Different meanings:
appendixes (medical term-slepo crevo), appendices (addition to a book).
Compound nouns
● the last word normally is made plural: boyfriends, travel agents
● when man , woman are the first part of a compound noun- both are made
plural: men drivers, women drivers… but policemen, doormen,
postmen, horsemen
● We add –s to the part of the compound noun which is a noun: hangerson (parazit), runners-up (drugoplasirani), sisters-in-law, editors-inchief, passers-by
● nouns ending in –ful normally add –s: handfuls, spoonfuls…
Collective nouns
are used both with is or are (i.e. with singular or plural verb form)
Our family is rather big.
Our family are having dinner.
● Nouns which always take plural verb :
-clothes, police
-garments consisting of two parts-pants, pyjamas, trousers
-tools, instruments consisting of two parts: scissors, scales, spectacles,
glasses
-other: arms, damages, earnings, savings, goods, grounds, outskirts,
surroundings, riches, pains, greens, valuables, spirits, manners, premises,
stairs…
- Nouns ending in -ics sometimes use plural verb (athletics, ethics, acoustics)
and singular(name of sciences )
● Singular verb stands after the words: news, information, advice,
furniture, luggage, mumps, rickets, billiards, dominoes, darts, physics,
mathematics, linguistics
Uncountable nouns:
-have only singular form and are used with the singular verb. They cannot
take a/an.
-They refer to:
1)substances( mass nouns): bread, dust, gold, sand…
2) abstract notions (abstract nouns): advice, experience, information,
knowledge, pity, suspicion, mercy, courage
3) some words which are neither abstract or substances are also uncountable:
baggage, luggage, damage, furniture, weather…
Many of these nouns can be used in a particular sense and are then countable:
-hair, hairs(kosa, dlake) , coffee (I’ll take two coffees), experiences(something
which happened to someone, doživljaj, avantura), works (dela, fabrika)
-If abstract nouns are used with an adjective before them, they are then
countable and take indefinite article:
My children are a great help.
They have a good knowledge of chemistry.
-In some expressions: It’s a pity/ shame, What a pity/shame, to have a fear of
something, It was a relief to sit down…