The Noun

THE NOUN

§ 165. The noun denotes thingness in a general sense. Thus nouns name things (book, table), living beings (man, tiger), places (valley, London, England), materials (iron, oil), processes (life, laughter), states (sleep, consciousness), abstract notions (socialism, joy) and qualities (kindness, courage).

Semantic characteristics

§ 166. Semantically all nouns fall into proper nouns and common nouns.

§ 167. Proper nouns are geographical names (New York, the Thames, Asia, the Alps), names of individual (unique) persons (John, Byron, Brown), names of the months and the days of the week (January, Sunday), names of planets (the Moon, the Sun, the Earth), names of ships, hotels, clubs (Shepherd's Hotel), of buildings, streets, parks, bridges (Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Regent Street, Charing Cross Road, Piccadilly Circus, Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Waterloo Bridge), of institutions, organizations, magazines and newspapers (the United Nations, the New Times, the Guardian). They are written with capitals.

§ 168. Common nouns can be classified into nouns denoting objects that can be counted and those that cannot. So there are count and non-count and collective common nouns. The former are inflected for number, whereas the latter are not. Further distinction is into concrete nouns, abstract nouns and nouns of material.

Semantic classification of English nouns is shown in the following scheme:

Concrete nouns semantically fall into three subclasses.

1. Nouns denoting living beings - persons and animals:

boy, girl, dog, cat.

2. Nouns denoting inanimate objects:

table, chair.

3. Collective (собирательные) nouns denoting a group of persons:

family, crowd.

There are some nouns which may be classified both as count and non-count. They often have considerable difference in meaning in the two classes.

Morphological composition

According to their morphological composition nouns can be divided into simple, derived, and compound.

Simple nouns...