Noun - Wikipedia Jump to content Main menu Main menu move to sidebar hide Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Special pages Search Search Appearance Donate Create account Log in Personal tools Donate Create account Log in Contents move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 History 2 Examples 3 Characterization and definition 4 Classification Toggle Classification subsection 4.1 Gender 4.2 Proper and common nouns 4.3 Countable nouns and mass nouns 4.4 Collective nouns 4.5 Concrete nouns and abstract nouns 4.6 Alienable vs. inalienable nouns 5 Noun phrases 6 Nouns in relation to other word classes Toggle Nouns in relation to other word classes subsection 6.1 Pronouns 6.2 Nominalization 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References Toggle References subsection 9.1 Bibliography 10 Further reading 11 External links Toggle the table of contents Noun 153 languages Afrikaans Alemannisch አማርኛ Aragonés العربية অসমীয়া Asturianu Azərbaycanca Башҡортса Basa Bali Boarisch Žemaitėška Bikol Central Беларуская (тарашкевіца) Беларуская Български भोजपुरी বাংলা Brezhoneg Bosanski Català Нохчийн کوردی Čeština Kaszëbsczi Чӑвашла Cymraeg Dansk Dagbanli Deutsch Ελληνικά Esperanto Español Eesti Euskara فارسی Suomi Føroyskt Français Frysk Gaeilge Gàidhlig Galego ગુજરાતી Gungbe Gaelg עברית हिन्दी Fiji Hindi Hrvatski Hornjoserbsce Magyar Հայերեն Արեւմտահայերէն Bahasa Indonesia Iñupiatun ГӀалгӀай Ido Íslenska Medžuslovjansky Italiano 日本語 Jawa ქართული Qaraqalpaqsha Адыгэбзэ Gĩkũyũ Қазақша ភាសាខ្មែរ ಕನ್ನಡ 한국어 Къарачай-малкъар کٲشُر Kurdî Kernowek Кыргызча Latina Lingua Franca Nova Limburgs ລາວ Lietuvių Latviešu Олык марий Македонски മലയാളം Монгол ဘာသာမန် मराठी Bahasa Melayu မြန်မာဘာသာ Эрзянь Plattdüütsch नेपाली Nederlands Norsk nynorsk Norsk bokmål Occitan Ирон ਪੰਜਾਬੀ Polski Piemontèis پنجابی Ποντιακά Português Runa Simi Română Русский Русиньскый Саха тыла ᱥᱟᱱᱛᱟᱲᱤ Scots سنڌي Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Simple English Slovenčina Slovenščina Soomaaliga Српски / srpski SiSwati Seeltersk Svenska Kiswahili ꠍꠤꠟꠐꠤ தமிழ் ತುಳು తెలుగు Тоҷикӣ ไทย Tagalog Tolışi Toki pona Türkçe Татарча / tatarça Тыва дыл ئۇيغۇرچە / Uyghurche Українська اردو Oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча Tiếng Việt Volapük Walon Winaray 吴语 IsiXhosa მარგალური ייִדיש Yorùbá ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ ⵜⴰⵏⴰⵡⴰⵢⵜ 文言 閩南語 / Bân-lâm-gí 粵語 中文 IsiZulu Edit links Article Talk English Read Edit View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read Edit View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Switch to legacy parser Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Part of speech that names an object or set of objects For other uses, see Noun (disambiguation). In grammar, a noun is a word that denotes a concrete or abstract entity, like living creatures, places, actions, events, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. To summarize this, nouns signify an object or idea. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.[1][note 1] In linguistics, nouns constitute a lexical category (part of speech) defined according to how its members combine with members of other lexical categories. The syntactic occurrence of nouns differs among languages. In English, prototypical nouns are common nouns or proper nouns that can occur with determiners, articles and attributive adjectives, and can function as the head of a noun phrase. According to traditional and popular classification, pronouns are distinct from nouns, but in much modern theory they are considered a subclass of nouns.[2] Every language has various linguistic and grammatical distinctions between nouns and verbs.[3] History [edit] See also History of parts of speech Word classes (parts of speech) were described by Sanskrit grammarians from at least the 5th century BC. In Yāska's Nirukta, the noun (nāma) is one of the four main categories of words defined.[4] The Ancient Greek equivalent was ónoma (ὄνομα), referred to by Plato in the Cratylus, and later listed as one of the eight parts of speech in The Art of Grammar, attributed to Dionysius Thrax (2nd century BC). The term used in Latin grammar was nōmen. All of these terms for "noun" were also words meaning "name".[5] The English word noun is derived from the Latin term, through the Anglo-Norman nom (other forms include nomme, and noun itself). The word classes were defined partly by the grammatical forms that they take. In Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, for example, nouns are categorized by gender and inflected for case and number. Because adjectives share these three grammatical categories, adjectives typically were placed in the same class as nouns. Similarly, the Latin term nōmen includes both nouns (substantives) and adjectives, as originally did the English word noun, the two types being distinguished as nouns substantive and nouns adjective (or substantive nouns and adjective nouns, or simply substantives and adjectives). (The word nominal is now sometimes used to denote a class that includes both nouns and adjectives.) Many European languages use a cognate of the word substantive as the basic term for noun (for example, Spanish sustantivo, "noun"). Nouns in the dictionaries of such languages are demarked by the abbreviation s. or sb. instead of n., which may be used for proper nouns or neuter nouns instead. In English, some modern authors use the word substantive to refer to a class that includes both nouns (single words) and noun phrases (multiword units that are sometimes called noun equivalents).[6] It can also be used as a counterpart to attributive when distinguishing between a noun being used as the head (main word) of a noun phrase and a noun being used as a noun adjunct. For example, the noun knee can be said to be used substantively in my knee hurts, but attributively in the patient needed knee replacement. Examples [edit] The cat sat on the chair. Please hand in your assignments by the end of the week. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Plato was an influential philosopher in ancient Greece. Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit / The oldest sins the newest kind of ways? Henry IV Part 2, act 4 scene 5. A noun can co-occur with an article or an attributive adjective. Verbs and adjectives cannot. In the following, an asterisk (*) in front of an example means that this example is ungrammatical. the name (name is a noun: can co-occur with a definite article the) *the baptise (baptise is a verb: cannot co-occur with a definite article) constant circulation (circulation is a noun: can co-occur with the attributive adjective constant) *constant circulate (circulate is a verb: cannot co-occur with the attributive adjective constant) a fright (fright is a noun: can co-occur with the indefinite article a) *an afraid (afraid is an adjective: cannot co-occur with the article a) terrible fright (the noun fright can co-occur with the adjective terrible) *terrible afraid (the adjective afraid cannot co-occur with the adjective terrible) Characterization and definition [edit] Nouns have sometimes been characterized in terms of the grammatical categories by which they may be varied (for example gender, case, and number). Such definitions tend to be language-specific, since different languages may apply different categories. Nouns are frequently defined, particularly in informal contexts, in terms of their semantic properties (their meanings). Nouns are described as words that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, quantity, etc., but this manner of definition has been criticized as uninformative.[7] Several English nouns lack an intrinsic referent of their own: behalf (as in on behalf of), dint (by dint of), and sake (for the sake of).[8] Moreover, other parts of speech may have reference-like properties: the verbs to rain or to mother, or adjectives like red; and there is little difference between the adverb gleefully and the prepositional phrase with glee.[note 2] A functional approach defines a noun as a word that can be the head of a nominal phrase, i.e., a phrase with referential function, without needing to go through morphological transformation.[9][10] Classification [edit] Nouns can have a number of different properties and are often sub-categorized based on various of these criteria, depending on their occurrence in a language. Nouns may be classified according to morphological properties such as which prefixes or suffixes they take, and also their relations in syntax – how they combine with other words and expressions of various types. Many such classifications are language-specific, given the obvious differences in syntax and morphology. In English for example, it might be noted that nouns are words that can co-occur with definite articles (as stated at the start of this article), but this could not apply in Russian, which has no definite articles. Gender [edit] Main article: Grammatical gender In some languages common and proper nouns have grammatical gender, typically masculine, feminine, and neuter. The gender of a noun (as well as its number and case, where applicable) will often require agreement in words that modify or are used along with it. In French for example, the singular form of the definite article is le for masculine nouns and la for feminine; adjectives and certain verb forms also change (sometimes with the simple addition of -e for feminine). Grammatical gender often correlates with the form of the noun and the inflection pattern it follows; for example, in both Italian and Romanian most nouns ending in -a are feminine. Gender can also correlate with the sex or social gender of the noun's referent, particularly in the case of nouns denoting people (and sometimes animals), though with exceptions (the feminine French noun personne can refer to a male or a female person). In Modern English, even common nouns like hen and princess and proper nouns like Alicia do not have grammatical gender (their femininity has no relevance in syntax), though they denote persons or animals of a specific sex. The gender of a pronoun must be appropriate for the item referred to: "The girl said the ring was from her new boyfriend, but he denied it was from him" (three nouns; and three gendered pronouns: or four, if this her is counted as a possessive pronoun). Proper and common nouns [edit] Main article: Proper noun A proper noun (sometimes called a proper name, though the two terms normally have different meanings) is a noun that represents a unique entity (India, Pegasus, Jupiter, Confucius, Pequod) – as distinguished from common nouns (or appellative nouns), which describe a class of entities (country, animal, planet, person, ship).[11] In Modern English, most proper nouns – unlike most common nouns – are capitalized regardless of context (Albania, Newton, Pasteur, America), as are many of the forms that are derived from them (the common noun in "he's an Albanian"; the adjectival forms in "he's of Albanian heritage" and "Newtonian physics", but not in "pasteurized milk"; the second verb in "they sough…