Module 1 Concept: Nouns

A NOUN is a form-class word that can normally be made plural or possessive and typically names entities or concrete/abstract things.

The more noun characteristics a noun has, the more prototypical it is. A noun like government has all five characteristics:

1. Fits the frame sentence: The government seems all right.

2. Has a noun-making morpheme: government

3. Can occur with the plural morpheme: governments

4. Can occur with the possessive morpheme: government’s

5. Can directly follow an article: the government

Therefore, government is a good candidate for a prototypical noun. Many other nouns have four or five of these characteristics, making them also prototypical: cat, sandwich, love, warrior, currency, etc.

The fewer noun characteristics a noun has, the more it becomes a peripheral case. A noun like happiness only fulfills two of the five noun characteristics:

Fits the frame sentence: Happiness seems all right.

Has a noun-making morpheme: happiness

The morpheme –ness makes nouns from adjectives, as in friendliness and creaminess.

Does not usually occur with the plural morpheme: *happinesses

Does not usually occur with the possessive morpheme: *happiness’s

Does not directly follow an article when it stands alone without modifiers: *a/the happiness

With modifiers, the article becomes more common: the happiness of the people

Happiness is not a good example of a prototypical noun because it only has two noun characteristics. That makes it a peripheral case.

Peripheral cases include:

• nouns derived from adjectives (happiness, diligence)

• nouns derived from verbs (reaction, runner)

• adjectives that are also nouns (red, cold)

• verbs that are also nouns (run, hit)

As a sentence constituent, a noun or any group of words that can substitute for a noun is a noun phrase.

A nominal is a word, phrase, or clause that functions as a noun phrase but does not necessarily contain a noun.

A nominal clause can substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Usually a that-clause or an interrogative clause.

Members of all four form classes can be divided into further subclasses based on certain semantic features. These features often have grammatical consequences. The following are some of the subclasses of nouns:

Proper Nouns	Common Nouns
Definition: The names of specific places, persons, or events.	Definition: All other nouns.
Examples: Las Vegas, President Lincoln, July 4th	Examples: city, president, holiday
Grammatical consequences: proper nouns usually cannot follow articles (a, an, the): in Las Vegas by President Lincoln on July 4th	Grammatical consequences: common nouns can follow articles (a, an, the): in the city by the president on the holiday

Count Nouns	Noncount (Mass) Nouns
Definition: Refer to things that are considered separate entities.	Definition: Refer to things that we think of as not countable because they occur in a mass.
Examples: pen, cell phone, egg	Example: ink, airtime, flour
Grammatical consequences: count nouns occur with many and other determiners that establish number: many pens two cell phones each egg	Grammatical consequences: noncount nouns only occur in the singular with much and other indefinite determiners: much ink some airtime a lot of flour

Other subclasses of nouns include human and nonhuman, animate and inanimate, and male and female.

Nominative is the case used in inflected languages to indicate the subject of a sentence. In English, the nominative case is evident in the pronouns I, he, she, we, and they, as opposed to the object forms me, him, her, us, and them.