2. Definitions of “Noun”
• Classic “A person, place, or thing”
• Sanskrit grammarians - does not have a time axis,
like frozen time
• Formal definition - takes nominal affixes: noun
derivational affix (e.g., government), can take
plural, can occur with possessive suffix
• Functional definition - can be preceded by an
article (the/a house), can appear in a frame
sentence ((The) _____ seem(s) nice.)
3. Number
• Types of plural: normal, internal change, zero plural,
foreign plurals (syllabi, curricula, indices, data)
• Nouns of quantity - three dozen, hundred, pound (in
British English), mile (in some dialects)
• Nouns resitant to singular/plural contrast
– Proper nouns
– Some words ending in -s (news, physics, mumps, billiards,
dominoes)
– Noncount (mass) nouns - cheese, instability
– Binary nouns - scissors, pants, trousers, glasses, binoculars, shorts
– Aggregate nouns - people, cattle, clergy, police, offspring, series,
barracks, committee (British English)
4. Gender
• Generally not a significant grammatical distinction in
English, except for with pronouns
• Animals - Familiar animals often have a gender distinction
and use male/female pronouns (e.g., horse/stallion/mare
(he, she), but spider (it)
• Gender with other nouns
– Gendered nouns (bachelor, usherette, king, princess…) - he, she
– Dual nouns (doctor, student, participant, customer) - he, she
– Plural nouns - “he or she”, “they”
5. Common/Proper Nouns
• Common Nouns do not refer to a specific person, place, event, or
thing
– E.g., shoe, house, day, car
• Proper Nouns refer to specific person, place, event, or thing
– E.g., Pat, the Queen, Chicago, Christmas, Lucille, General Motors
– Do not usually follow articles: on (*the) Christmas Day, in (*the)
Chicago, *the Shakespeare
– Do not usually take plurals
– Exceptions:
• Referring to a real or imagined unique proper noun: “the Christmas of 1942”,
“Are you the Howard Dean?”, “That’s not the Chicago I remember.”
• Certain place names: the Missippi River, the Great Lakes, the Rocky
Mountains, the Atlantic Ocean, the White House
• Certain institutions: the New York Times, the Lincoln Museum,
6. Count/Mass (Noncount) Nouns
• Count Nouns are nouns that can be counted and take a plural
– E.g., shoe, horse, boy, inconsistency, universe
– Occur with “many” - “How many ____?”, “There were many ___”
– Occur with “few” - “too few ____”, “We only have a few _____”
• Mass Nouns (Noncount Nouns) are nouns that cannot be counted
– E.g., sugar, water, rice, wheat, mud, milk, music, laziness
– Occur with “much” - “How much __”, “There is much ____”
– Occurs with “little” instead of “few”: “too little ____”, “We only have a
little ____”
– Occur with partitive constructions to indicate units - grain of sand/rice,
cup of water/milk, piece of music/leather, clump of mud, blade of grass,
slice of meat/pie, item of clothing
• Some nouns can be both
– E.g., pie, cake, brick, stone, love
9. Definite and Indefinite Articles
• Definite Article – the
– Refers to something predictable
– E.g., from a the narrative context – Once upon a time there was a
king…Now the king had three daughters.
– E.g., from the cultural context – What do you think of the President?;
Do you watch the news on television?
– E.g., from the situational context – We went to a restaurant and liked
the menu (waiter, service, food, *teller, *nurse); We were in a house, in
the dining room, when we heard a knock at the door.
• Indefinite Articles – a/an, this (very informal)
– Refer to something unpredictable
– E.g., I met an interesting man; Once upon a time there was a king.; I
know this man and he says…
10. Generic vs. Specific Reference
• Specific refers to a specific person or thing
– E.g., Look at that elephant; Yesterday I met a man.
• Generic refers to any one of a group
– Generic pronouns – one, they, you, s/he
– Nouns can also have generic reference – A good man is
hard to find; The bald eagle is back for near extinction.
• Some sentences are ambiguous in terms of generic
or specific reference – E.g., My sister wants to
marry a rich man; The lion is dangerous.
11. Pronoun Types
• Central
– Personal – e.g., I, me, they, them
– Reflexive – e.g., myself, themselves
– Reciprocal – each other, one another
– Possessive – e.g., my/mine, their/theirs
• Relative – which, who, whose, whom, that
• Interrogative – who, whom, which, whose, what
• Demonstrative – this, these, that, those
• Indefinite – e.g., both, each, nobody, everything
