Noun {{ExamplesSidebar|35%| * The '''cat''' sat on the '''mat'''. * Please hand in your '''assignments''' by the '''end''' of the '''week'''. * '''Cleanliness''' is next to '''godliness'''. * '''George Washington''' was the first '''president''' of the '''United States of America'''. }} {{ExamplesSidebar|35%| A proper or common noun can co-occur with an [[article (grammar)|article]] or an [[adjective|attributive adjective]]. Verbs and adjectives can't. In the following, a ‘*’ 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 baptize''' ("baptize" is a verb: can't 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: can't 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: can't co-occur with the article "a".) # '''terrible fright''' (The noun "fright" can co-occur with the adjective "terrible".) # '''*terrible afraid''' (The adjective "afraid" can't co-occur with the adjective "terrible" }} In [[linguistics]], a '''noun''' is a member of a large, [[open class (linguistics)|open]] [[lexical category]] whose members can occur as the main word in the [[subject (grammar)|subject]] of a [[clause]], the [[object (grammar)|object]] of a [[verb]], or the object of a [[preposition]].Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsANoun.htm Glossary of linguistic terms: What is a noun?] Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of expressions. The syntactic rules for nouns differ from language to language. In [[English language|English]], nouns may be defined as those words which can occur with articles and [[adjective|attributive adjectives]] and can function as the [[phrase|head]] of a [[noun phrase]]. In [[traditional grammar|traditional]] English grammar, the noun is one of the eight [[parts of speech]]. ==History== The word comes from the [[Latin]] ''nomen'' meaning "[[name]]". Word classes like nouns were first described by the Sanskrit grammarian [[Panini (grammarian)|{{IAST|Pāṇini}}]] and ancient Greeks like [[Dionysios Thrax]]; and were defined in terms of their [[morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] properties. For example, in Ancient Greek, nouns inflect for [[case (grammar)|grammatical case]], such as dative or accusative. [[Verb]]s, on the other hand, inflect for [[grammatical tense|tenses]], such as past, present or future, while nouns do not. [[Aristotle]] also had a notion of ''onomata'' (nouns) and ''rhemata'' (verbs) which, however, does not exactly correspond with modern notions of nouns and verbs.{{Fact|date=September 2007}} Vinokurova 2005Vinokurova, Nadezhda. 2005. [http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2005-0325-013011/index.htm Lexical categories and argument structure : a study with reference to Sakha.] Ph.D. diss. University of Utrecht. has a more detailed discussion of the historical origin of the notion of a noun. ==Different definitions of nouns== Expressions of [[natural language]] have properties at different levels. They have ''formal'' properties, like what kinds of [[morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] [[prefix]]es or [[suffix]]es they take and what kinds of other expressions they combine with; but they also have [[semantics|semantic]] properties, i.e. properties pertaining to their meaning. The definition of a noun at the outset of this page is thus a ''formal'', traditional grammatical definition. That definition, for the most part, is considered uncontroversial and furnishes the propensity for certain language users to effectively distinguish most nouns from non-nouns. However, it has the disadvantage that it does not apply to nouns in all languages. For example in [[Russian language|Russian]], there are no definite articles, so one cannot define nouns as words that are modified by definite articles. There are also several attempts of defining nouns in terms of their [[semantics|semantic]] properties. Many of these are controversial, but some are discussed below. [[Image:The Thinker close.jpg|thumb|right|250px|'''Rodin's "Thinker".''' Should we refer to this with a verb ("think", "ponder") or a noun ("thought", "thinker"), or an adjective ("pensive", "thoughtful")? In different contexts, any of these would do. However, when ''the statue itself'' is referred to, in any context, it is in the form of a noun, as the statue itself is an object.]] ===Names for things=== In [[Traditional grammar|traditional school grammars]], one often encounters the definition of nouns that they are all and only those expressions that refer to a ''person'', ''place'', ''thing'', ''event'', ''substance'', ''quality'', or ''idea'', etc. This is a ''semantic'' definition. It has been criticized by contemporary linguists as being uninformative.{{Fact|date=September 2007}} Contemporary linguists generally agree that one cannot successfully define nouns (or other grammatical categories) in terms of what sort of ''object in the world'' they ''[[reference|refer]] to'' or ''[[signification|signify]]''. Part of the [[conundrum]] is that the definition makes use of relatively ''general'' nouns ("thing", "phenomenon", "event") to define what nouns ''are''. The existence of such ''general'' nouns demonstrates that nouns refer to entities that are organized in [[taxonomy|taxonomic]] [[hierarchies]]. But other kinds of expressions are also organized into such structured taxonomic relationships. For example the verbs "stroll","saunter", "stride", and "tread" are more specific words than the more ''general'' "walk". Moreover, "walk" is more specific than the verb "move", which, in turn, is less general than "change". But it is unlikely that such taxonomic relationships can be used to ''define'' nouns and verbs. We cannot ''define'' verbs as those words that refer to "changes" or "states", for example, because the nouns ''change'' and ''state'' probably refer to such things, but, of course, aren't verbs. Similarly, nouns like "invasion", "meeting", or "collapse" refer to things that are "done" or "happen". In fact, an influential [[theory]] has it that verbs like "kill" or "die" refer to events,Davidson, Donald. 1967. The logical form of action sentences. In Nicholas Rescher, ed., The Logic of Decision and Action, Pittsburgh, Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press.Parsons, Terence. 1990. Events in the semantics of English: a study in [[subatomic semantics]]. Cambridge, Mass.:MIT Press which is among the sort of thing that nouns are supposed to refer to. The point being made here is not that this view of verbs is wrong, but rather that this property of verbs is a poor basis for a ''definition'' of this category, just like the property of ''having wheels'' is a poor basis for a definition of cars (some things that have wheels, such as my suitcase or a jumbo jet, aren't cars). Similarly, adjectives like "yellow" or "difficult" might be thought to refer to qualities, and adverbs like "outside" or "upstairs" seem to refer to places, which are also among the sorts of things nouns can refer to. But verbs, adjectives and adverbs are not nouns, and nouns aren't verbs, adjectives or adverbs. One might argue that "definitions" of this sort really rely on speakers' prior intuitive knowledge of what nouns, verbs and adjectives are, and, so don't really add anything over and beyond this. Speakers' intuitive knowledge of such things might plausibly be based on ''formal'' criteria, such as the traditional grammatical definition of English nouns aforementioned. ===Prototypically referential expressions=== Another semantic definition of nouns is that they are ''prototypically referential.''Croft, William. 1993. "A noun is a noun is a noun - or is it? Some reflections on the universality of semantics". Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, ed. Joshua S. Guenter, Barbara A. Kaiser and Cheryl C. Zoll, 369-80. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. That definition is also not very helpful in distinguishing actual nouns from verbs. But it may still correctly identify a core property of nounhood. For example, we will tend to use nouns like "fool" and "car" when we wish to refer to fools and cars, respectively. The notion that this is '''prototypical''' reflects the fact that such nouns can be used, even though nothing with the corresponding property is referred to: :John is no '''fool'''. :If I had a '''car''', I'd go to Marrakech. The first sentence above doesn't refer to any fools, nor does the second one refer to any particular car. ===Predicates with identity criteria=== The British logician [[Peter Thomas Geach]] proposed a very subtle semantic definition of nouns.Geach, Peter. 1962. Reference and Generality. Cornell University Press. He noticed that adjectives like "same" can modify nouns, but no other kinds of parts of speech, like [[verbs]] or [[adjectives]]. Not only that, but there also doesn't seem to be any ''other'' expressions with similar meaning that can modify verbs and adjectives. Consider the following examples. : Good: John and Bill participated in the '''same''' fight. : Bad: *John and Bill '''samely''' fought. [[Image:Clones id.jpg|thumb|250px|Identity criteria allow us to represent who is identical to whom]] There is no English adverb "samely". In some other languages, like Czech, however there are adverbs corresponding to "samely". Hence, in Czech, the translation of the last sentence would be fine; however, it would mean that John and Bill fought ''in the same way'': not that they participated in the ''same fight''. Geach proposed that we could explain this, if nouns denote logical [[predicate (grammar)|predicate]]s with '''identity criteria'''. An identity criterion would allow us to conclude, for example, that "person x at time 1 is ''the same person'' as person y at time 2". Different nouns can have different identity criteria. A well known example of this is due to Gupta:Gupta, Anil. 1980, The logic of common nouns. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. :National Airlines transported 2 million '''passengers''' in 1979. :National Airlines transported (at least) 2 million '''persons''' in 1979. Given that, in general, all passengers are persons, the last sentence above ought to follow logically from the first one. But it doesn't. It is easy to imagine, for example, that on average, every person who travelled with National Airlines in 1979, travelled with them twice. In that case, one would say that the airline transported 2 million ''passengers'' but only 1 million ''persons''. Thus, the way that we count ''passengers'' isn't necessarily the same as the way that we count ''persons''. Put somewhat differently: At two different times, ''you'' may correspond to two distinct ''passengers'', even though you are one and the same person. For a precise definition of ''identity criteria'', see Gupta. Recently, Baker has proposed that Geach's definition of nouns in terms of identity criteria allows us to ''explain'' the characteristic properties of nouns. He argues that nouns can co-occur with (in-)definite articles and numerals, and are "prototypically referential" ''because'' they are all and only those [[parts of speech]] that provide identity criteria. Baker's proposals are quite new, and linguists are still evaluating them. ==Classification of nouns in English== ===Proper nouns and common nouns=== ''Proper nouns'' (also called ''[[proper name]]s'') are nouns representing unique entities (such as ''London'', ''Universe'' or ''John''), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as ''city'', ''planet'' or ''person''){{cite web |url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/proper%20noun |title=proper noun |accessdate=2007-03-23 |work=Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)}}. In [[English language|English]] and most other languages that use the [[Latin alphabet]], proper nouns are usually [[capitalization|capitalized]].{{cite web |url=http://www.englishforums.com |title=The Proper Noun |accessdate=2007-03-23 |publisher=EnglishForums.com}} Languages differ in whether most elements of multiword proper nouns are capitalised (e.g., American English ''House of Representatives'') or only the initial element (e.g., Slovenian ''Državni zbor'' 'National Assembly'). In [[German language|German]], nouns of all types are capitalized. The convention of capitalizing ''all'' nouns was previously used in English, but ended circa 1800. In America, the shift in capitalization is recorded in several noteworthy documents. The end (but not the beginning) of the [[United States Declaration of Independence#Annotated text of the Declaration|Declaration of Independence]] (1776) and all of the [[United States Constitution|Constitution]] (1787) show nearly all nouns capitalized, the [[United States Bill of Rights#Text of the Bill of Rights|Bill of Rights]] (1789) capitalizes a few common nouns but not most of them, and the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment]] (1865) only capitalizes proper nouns. Sometimes the same word can function as both a common noun and a proper noun, where one such entity is special. For example the common noun ''god'' denotes all deities, while the proper noun ''God'' references the [[monotheism|monotheistic]] [[God]] specifically. Owing to the essentially arbitrary nature of [[Orthography|orthographic]] classification and the existence of variant authorities and adopted [[Style guide|''house styles'']], questionable capitalization of words is not uncommon, even in respected newspapers and magazines. Most publishers, however, properly require ''consistency'', at least within the same document, in applying their specified standard. The common meaning of the word or words constituting a proper noun may be unrelated to the object to which the proper noun refers. For example, someone might be named "Tiger Smith" despite being neither a [[tiger]] nor a [[smith (metalwork)|smith]]. For this reason, proper nouns are usually not [[translation|translated]] between languages, although they may be [[transliteration|transliterated]]. For example, the German surname ''Knödel'' becomes ''Knodel'' or ''Knoedel'' in English (not the literal ''Dumpling''). However, the [[Transliteration|transcription]] of place names and the names of [[monarch]]s, [[pope]]s, and non-contemporary [[author]]s is common and sometimes universal. For instance, the [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] word ''Lisboa'' becomes ''[[Lisbon]]'' in [[English language|English]]; the English ''London'' becomes ''Londres'' in French; and the [[ancient Greek|Greek]] ''Aristotelēs'' becomes [[Aristotle]] in English. ===Countable and uncountable nouns=== {{main|Count noun|Mass noun}} ''Count nouns'' are common nouns that can take a [[plural]], can combine with [[numerals]] or [[quantifiers]] (e.g. "one", "two", "several", "every", "most"), and can take an indefinite article ("a" or "an"). Examples of count nouns are "chair", "nose", and "occasion". ''Mass nouns'' (or ''non-count nouns'') differ from count nouns in precisely that respect: they can't take plural or combine with number words or quantifiers. Examples from English include "laughter", "cutlery", "helium", and "furniture". For example, it is not possible to refer to "a furniture" or "three furnitures". This is true even though the pieces of furniture comprising "furniture" could be counted. Thus the distinction between mass and count nouns shouldn't be made in terms of what sorts of things the nouns ''refer'' to, but rather in terms of how the nouns ''present'' these entities.Krifka, Manfred. 1989. "Nominal Reference, Temporal Constitution and Quantification in Event Semantics". In R. Bartsch, J. van Benthem, P. von Emde Boas (eds.), Semantics and Contextual Expression, Dordrecht: Foris Publication.Borer, Hagit. 2005. ''In Name Only. Structuring Sense, Volume I.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. ===Collective nouns=== {{main|Collective noun}} ''Collective nouns'' are nouns that refer to ''groups'' consisting of more than one individual or entity, even when they are inflected for the [[Grammatical number|singular]]. Examples include "committee", "herd", and "school" (of herring). These nouns have slightly different grammatical properties than other nouns. For example, the [[noun phrases]] that they [[head (syntax)|head]] can serve as the [[subject (grammar)|subject]] of a [[collective predicate]], even when they are inflected for the singular. A [[collective predicate]] is a predicate that normally can't take a singular subject. An example of the latter is "talked to each other". :Good: The '''boys''' talked to each other. :Bad: *The '''boy''' talked to each other. :Good: The '''committee''' talked to each other. ===Concrete nouns and abstract nouns=== {{See|physical body|abstract object}} ''Concrete nouns'' refer to [[physical bodies]] which you use at least one of your [[sense]]s to observe. For instance, "chair", "apple", or "Janet". ''Abstract nouns'' on the other hand refer to [[abstract object]]s, that is ideas or concepts, such as "justice" or "hate". While this distinction is sometimes useful, the boundary between the two of them is not always clear; consider, for example, the noun "art". In English, many abstract nouns are formed by adding noun-forming suffixes ("-ness", "-ity", "-tion") to adjectives or verbs. Examples are "happiness", "circulation" and "serenity". ==Nouns and pronouns== [[Noun phrase]]s can typically be replaced by [[pronoun]]s, such as "he", "it", "which", and "those", in order to avoid repetition or explicit identification, or for other reasons. For example, in the sentence "Janet thought that he was weird", the word "he" is a pronoun standing in place of the name of the person in question. The English word ''one'' can replace parts of [[noun phrase]]s, and it sometimes stands in for a noun. An example is given below: : John's car is newer than ''the one'' that Bill has. But ''one'' can also stand in for bigger subparts of a noun phrase. For example, in the following example, ''one'' can stand in for ''new car''. : This new car is cheaper than ''that one''. ==Substantive as a word for "noun"== Starting with old [[Latin language|Latin]] grammars, many European languages use some form of the word ''substantive'' as the basic term for noun. Nouns in the dictionaries of such languages are demarked by the abbreviation "s" instead of "n", which may be used for proper nouns instead. This corresponds to those grammars in which nouns and adjectives phase into each other in more areas than, for example, the English term [[Predicative_adjective#Predicative_adjective|predicate adjective]] entails. In French and Spanish, for example, adjectives frequently act as nouns referring to people who have the characteristics of the adjective. An example in English is: : The ''poor'' you have always with you. Similarly, an adjective can also be used for a whole group or organization of people: : The Socialist ''International''. Hence, these words are substantives that are usually adjectives in English. ==References== {{reflist}} ===Bibliography=== * Laycock, Henry, 2005 [http://post.queensu.ca/%7Elaycockh/Mass%20nouns%20%20Count%20nouns%20%20Non-count%20nouns.pdf 'Mass nouns, Count nouns and Non-count nouns'], Draft version of entry in ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'' Oxford: Elsevier (pdf) ==See also== {{Wiktionary}} *[[verb]]s *[[adjective]]s *[[lexical category|part of speech]] *[[noun phrase]] *[[mass noun]] *[[agent noun]] *[[collective noun]] *[[proper name]] *[[reference]] ==External links== *[http://www.webworkbooks.com/spanish/grammar/nouns.php WebWorkbooks: Spanish/English Nouns.] *[http://www.ojohaven.com/collectives/ The Collective Noun Page] [[Category:Grammar]] [[Category:Parts of speech]] [[af:Selfstandige naamwoord]] [[als:Substantiv]] [[ar:اسم]] [[bs:Imenice]] [[br:Anv-kadarn]] [[bg:Съществително име]] [[ca:Substantiu]] [[cv:Япала ячĕ]] [[cs:Podstatné jméno]] [[cy:Enw]] [[da:Navneord]] [[de:Substantiv]] [[el:Ουσιαστικό]] [[es:Sustantivo]] [[eo:Substantivo]] [[fa:اسم (دستور زبان)]] [[fo:Navnorð]] [[fr:Nom]] [[gd:Ainmear]] [[gl:Substantivo]] [[ko:명사 (품사)]] [[hy:Գոյական անուն]] [[hr:Imenice]] [[id:Nomina]] [[is:Nafnorð]] [[it:Sostantivo]] [[he:שם עצם]] [[ka:არსებითი სახელი]] [[kk:Зат есім]] [[la:Nomen (grammatica Latina)]] [[lv:Lietvārds]] [[lt:Daiktavardis]] [[hu:Főnév]] [[ml:നാമം]] [[mr:नाम]] [[mn:Нэр үг]] [[nl:Zelfstandig naamwoord]] [[ja:名詞]] [[no:Substantiv]] [[nn:Substantiv]] [[nds:Substantiv]] [[pl:Rzeczownik]] [[pt:Substantivo]] [[ro:Substantiv]] [[qu:Sutirimana]] [[ru:Имя существительное]] [[simple:Noun]] [[ss:Libito]] [[sk:Podstatné meno]] [[sl:Samostalnik]] [[sr:Именице]] [[sh:Imenica]] [[fi:Substantiivi]] [[sv:Substantiv]] [[tl:Pangngalan]] [[th:คำนาม]] [[vi:Danh từ]] [[tr:İsim]] [[uk:Іменник]] [[yi:סובסטאנטיוו]] [[zh:名詞]]