The word noun is derived from a Latin word “nomeri” (a name). a noun can therefore, simply be defined as the name of anything. It may be concrete, real or tangible such as Ayo, Lagos, Book, Teacher, Pupil, Water etc. It may be abstract, intangible or imaginary such as Hope, Fear, Belief, Wish, Idea, Thought, Love etc.
ROLES OF NOUN
A noun can play the role of either the subject or object of a verb. It could also be the object of a preposition or even a complement in a sentence. The role also indicates it position in a sentence.
EXAMPLES
Subject of a verb: Lagos is a busy city
Object of a verb: The girl loves the boy
Object of a preposition: John put the car in the garage
Complement of the verb “is” or its varieties as am, are, was, were: Stella is a teacher
TYPES OF NOUN
There are basically two types of noun: proper and improper or common nouns.
Proper nouns are names given to specific people, places, things, days and months.
Examples;
Ayo, Audu, Emmanuel, Ibadan, Ghana, Europe, The Guardian, Mr. Biggs, UBA Plc, Friday Wednesday, January, December etc.
Improper or common nouns do not refer to anything specific, they can refer to one in a group, count or mass concrete or abstract. Thus we can have varieties of common nouns such as: –
- Collective:– The name of a group of people or things considered as a unit e.g flock, team, crew, crowd, army, furniture.
- Concrete: – The name of what can be touched or felt e.g book, teacher, biro, cloth, table radio etc
- Abstract: – The name of what cannot be touched or felt e.g hope, love, poverty, honesty, fear etc
- Countable: – The name of a thing that may be counted e.g house, student, three, car clock etc.
- Uncountable: – The name of a thing that may not be counted e.g water, salt, oil ink etc
See also:
STRUCTURE | Clauses – Subordinate and Insubordinate
Structure: Affixation: Suffixes
Vocabulary Development: Hotel & Catering