Nouns

E. Siler

Noun Phrases

• A noun phrase is formed from a noun and all the words that are “stuck to it” that modify it.

• A noun phrase is usually MORE than a noun!

Editing Noun Phrases

• We are going to spend the next two weeks working on editing noun phrases.

• To do that, it is very important that we start with a clear understanding of TYPES Of NOUNS.

Three Types of Nouns

• There are THREE types of nouns in English:• Countable• Uncountable• Proper

Proper Nouns

• Proper nouns are best thought of as NAMES.• Names in English are generally punctuated

with capital letters.

Examples of Proper Nouns

• All of the words in the following text are proper nouns: (see p. 177 of the class textbook, paragraph 3):– PET (name of a type of plastic)– Container Recycling Institute (name of an

organization)– Grass Roots Recycling Network (name of an

organization)– Pepsi (name of a soft drink)

NOTE

• Americans (which also appears in the paragraph) is not a name (even though it is capitalized).

• We know this because names are not pluralized (though some names start as plurals as in “Dreamworks”) .

• One can’t say “3 Liz Silers” – in this case “Liz Siler” is not a name.

• It’s just a way to say “three women with the name of Liz Siler.”

• The same is true of Americans. This is a way to say “people called American.”

Count Nouns

• Count nouns are nouns that English speakers think can be counted directly.

• In other words, we think you can say “1 (thing), 2 things, 3 things, etc.’

• Count nouns are marked in the Longman Dictionary as “countable.”

Examples of Count Nouns

• All of the following (from the same paragraph) are count nouns:

• Expert/ drop/ number/beverage/ office/ park/ car/ place/ bin/ rate/ loss/ opportunity/ processor/ user/ operation/ bottle/ barrel/ ton/ greenhouse/ emission/plastic/ portion/ stream/ day

• NOTE: Some of these words have “s” on the end of them or “a/n” in front of them --- which are immediate tip offs that they are count nouns!

Non-count Nouns

• Non-count nouns are the third category. • There are usually fewer non-count nouns than

count nouns in an English passage.• Non-count nouns are nouns that English speakers

do not believe can be directly counted. • Thus we cannot use “a” or numbers in front of

them and we cannot make them plural --- so you won’t see “a” in front of them or “s” after them.

• We mark them as “uncountable” in the dictionary.

Counting Non-Count Nouns

• To “count” non-count words, we often use quantifiers (made with other count nouns) that allow us to count the quantifiers.

• Example: Milk is a non-count noun. • We count “quantifiers” of milk: a bottle of

milk; 3 bottles of milk.

Examples of Non-Count Nouns

• From the same paragraph, look at these non-count nouns.

• Recycling/ home/ environment/ business/ oil/ equivalent/ gas/ e-waste/

Switch Hitters

• Of course, we have many words that in English can be either a count or a non-count noun, depending on the meaning.

• In the dictionary, these are shown as being countable and uncountable.

Example

• The word “hair” is a good example. • Most of the time “hair” is non-count and

refers to a mass of fur-like material. • If we count it, we count the quantifiers: a head

of hair; three heads of hair. . . .

Switch Hitters 2

• Sometimes, however, we focus on a single strand of hair.

• And then we say, “a hair” or “a few hairs” as in:

• A few hairs from my cat landed in the soup and I accidentally swallowed a hair!

Switch Hitters

• If we look at the list of non-count nouns in the passage, we’ll see that all of the ones in blue could be switch hitters if used in slightly different meanings than they are used in this passage:

• Recycling/ home/ environment/ business/ oil/ equivalent/ gas/ e-waste/

• Because there are so many switch-hitters in English, we say that a noun is count or non-count in a given context.

• Very few nouns are always countable or always uncountable!

Homework

• Look at p. 188 and p. 189.• Focus on the paragraph that starts on the bottom of p.

188 (starts with the words “According to”) and the second paragraph on p. 189 that starts with the words “In response to. . .”

• On the class assignment sheet, list:• All of the proper nouns;• All of the nouns used as count nouns in this passage.• All of the nouns used as non-count nouns in this

passage.