Grammar:Nouns

The Noun
A word that refers to the name of a person, animal, place or thing is called a noun.
Kinds of Nouns:
1) Proper Nouns: The name of some particular person or place is a proper noun. Proper
nouns begin with a capital letter.
2) Common Nouns: The name given to every person or thing of the same class or kind
is a common noun.
3) Abstract Nouns: The name given to a quality, action or state considered apart from
the object to which it belongs, is an abstract noun. eg., beauty, charity, friendship,
etc.
4) Collective Nouns: The name given to a collection of persons or things taken together
and spoken of as a whole is a collective noun eg., crowd, group, team, army, etc.

Possession:
 In order to indicate possession, we add -s after the singular noun. Eg. This is Rupa’s
book.
 If the noun is plural and ends in -s, then only the apostrophe is used for indicating
possession. Eg. This is a girls’ school.
 For a plural noun not ending in -s, the possessive is formed by adding -s after the
apostrophe. Eg. I want to join the wo e ’s club.
 Its is an exception to the rule. It indicates possession but does not adhere to the -s
format. Eg. The boy always carries a heavy bag and its weight prevents him from
walking straight.(its weight means the weight of the bag). Whereas it’s could be an
abbreviation for it is or it has. Eg. It’s justified that he leaves the office early today.
 Inanimate objects do not usually take the -s form. Eg. The chair’s legs are broken.
(wrong). The legs of the chair are broken.(right).

Uncountable nouns:
advice, air, alcohol, armour, art, baggage, beef, behaviour, blood, bread, butter, cheese,
clothing, coffee, conduct, confusion, cotton, courage, education, electricity,
entertainment, equipment, fiction, flour, food, forgiveness, furniture, garbage, gold,
gossip, grass, ground, hardware, happiness, history, homework, honey, hospitality peace,
hope, information, importance, jam (Except when talking about traffic jams),
jewellery, justice, knowledge,
laughter, lightning, literature, love, luck, luggage, machinery, meat, melancholy, milk,
mist, money, music, nature, news, noise, oil, oxygen, paper (except when talking
about academic papers), patience, pay, peace,
pepper, petrol, plastic, pork, power, rain, research, rice, sadness, salt, scenery,
shopping, silver, snow, softness, software, space, steam, sugar, sunshine, tennis, thunder,
traffic, travel, trousers, vinegar, violence water, weather, wine, wood, wool , work,
warmth.

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