11 TYPES OF NOUN
Nouns are words which name people, places, things or ideas
All of these words are nouns:
sunlight, John, cat, Mexico, trust
We can classify nouns in different ways…
1. CONCRETE NOUNS
2. ABSTRACT NOUNS
We can see, hear, taste, smell or touch the things that
CONCRETE nouns represent, for example:
apple, friend, Sydney Opera House
We can’t see, hear, taste, smell or touch the things
that ABSTRACT nouns represent:
trust, knowledge, progress
3. PROPER NOUNS
4. CONCRETE NOUNS
PROPER nouns refer to a specific person, place or thing.
They start with a CAPITAL letter…
Mark has a friend called John. They live in a house in
London.
COMMON nouns don’t refer to a specific person, place or
thing…
Mark has a friend called John. They live in a house in London.
5. SINGULAR NOUNS
6. PLURAL NOUNS
Nouns can be SINGULAR (only one)…
The baby held up one foot and one hand.
…or PLURAL (more than one)
Babies have two feet and two hands.
We usually add "s" to a singular noun to make it PLURAL:
hand - hands
But some nouns follow different rules, for example:
baby – babies, foot – feet, wolf – wolves, mouse - mice
7. COUNTABLE NOUNS
8. NON-COUNTABLE NOUNS
We can count some nouns…
1 apple
2 apples
3 apples
…but there are some nouns we can’t count
1 water
2 waters
3 waters
We’d have to put water into glasses (or drops) to count it
1 glass of water
2 glasses of water
3 glasses of water
That’s why countable nouns can be singular or plural…
apple
2 apples
…but non-countable nouns can’t be made plural
water
2 waters
9. POSSESSIVE FORMS
OF NOUNS
We use the POSSESSIVE form of a noun to show that it
"owns" something
This is my daughter’s dog
The children’s dinner is cold
The birds’ nest is in the tree
10. COLLECTIVE NOUNS
COLLECTIVE nouns talk about a group of people
or things made up of individual parts
The team was
playing well
The audience is
clapping
Collective nouns are singular if the individual parts
are acting together… The team was playing well
…and plural if they are acting individually. The team
got in their cars.
11. COMPOUND NOUNS
We can stick two words together to make a COMPOUND
noun
football, tablecloth
city-state, tractor-trailer
rocking chair, container ship
Want to know more grammar rules? Get the Eslbase Online Grammar Course