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Noun, Pronoun and Articles

1. Noun:-
A noun's simplest definition is a thing, and nouns are the basic sentence building
blocks. These things can represent an individual, an animal, a place, an idea, an
emotion–almost anything you might think of. The more you can express your thoughts,
the more nouns you learn in a sentence.
Word examples of nouns: love, faith, apple, sea, peanut, motorcycle.
Sentence examples of noun:
a) The boy and girl were silently doing their homework.
b) He loves watching his dog play with his child.

Noun categories: There are several categories of nouns, and these categories can
overlap. There are common and specific nouns and concrete and abstract nouns, yet some
nouns are both concrete and common, or concrete and appropriate.
(i) Common nouns are the words most widely used such as land, evening, laughter,
puppy, umbrella, etc.
(ii) Proper nouns are the names that identify a person or a place. It capitalizes on
the proper nouns. John is a proper noun since John's name is a specific, unique example
of a thing John.
Examples of the proper noun: Mary, Jimmy, Aunt Audrey, Honda, Philadelphia.
(iii) Concrete nouns are a real and tangible thing: pig, human, rock, smell, air, soup,
all concrete nouns are Larry.
Examples of concrete nouns: cup, machine, diamond, perfume, rollercoaster, etc.
(iv) An abstract noun describes something more like a concept or idea: love,
honesty, equality, friendship, beauty, knowledge are examples of abstract nouns.

It is also possible to identify nouns as countable or uncountable.

(a) Countable nouns are the nouns that are possible to number or count.
Examples of Countable nouns: airplane, socket, pots, noodle, instructor, 1000 noodles,
peach, horse, hat, telescope, etc.
(b) Uncountable nouns can have either a quantity or a quality, but they can not be
counted.
Examples of uncountable nouns: water, music, clothing, comprehension, hate, trust,
appeal, wisdom.

Collective nouns refer to a group of people or things: audience, team, bunch, family,
class.
Collective nouns refer to a group of people or things.
Americans use singular verbs with the collective nouns, such as the party dances happily,
Britishers use singular verbs and plural verbs, as in the party was/were dancing crazily
before the Queen.
Examples of collective nouns: government, jury, squad, crowd, school, class, and space
(room or building people).

2. Pronoun:
A pronoun is defined as a word or phrase used to replace a noun or noun phrase known
as the precedent of the pronoun. Pronouns are short words and can do all that nouns can
do and are one of a sentence's building blocks.

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Popular examples of pronouns are He, it, you, I, they, we, who, him, she, you, me, this,
these, they, that. A pronoun may function as a subject, direct object, indirect object,
preposition object, and more, taking the place of any person, location, item, or thing.
We would have to repeat nouns without pronouns endlessly, and that would make our
speech and writing boring, not to mention tedious. The use of pronouns allows the flow of
sentences and makes them more meaningful.
Example - Barbara drinks a cup of coffee every afternoon, she wants to have it before
dinner. (Using pronouns)
Barbara drinks a cup of coffee every afternoon, Barbara likes having a cup of coffee before
dinner. (without pronouns)
For example: She likes having a cup of it before dinner.

As mentioned above, pronouns are typically used to replace nouns, but some adverbs,
adjectives, and other pronouns can also be used. You can use pronouns to add interest
and make your speech or writing flow better, almost any time you refer to a human, object,
place or thing.
A pronoun has to obey an expression called an antecedent in almost all situations. This
means that a pronoun can only be interpreted in the sense of prior noun knowledge.

Pronouns can be categorized into various types -

i) Indefinite pronouns– Those that refer to one or more unspecified things, entities, or
locations, such as someone, something, nothing.
ii) Personal pronouns–those associated with a particular person, item or group; all but you
have distinct forms indicating singular or plural number. Personal pronouns are always
descriptive and are often used as a replacement for a proper noun (someone's name) or
a group of people or items.
iii) Reflexive pronouns–those followed by the adverb, adjective, pronoun, or noun they
refer to and ending up in themselves or themselves. Reflexive pronouns are used to refer
back to a sentence's topic or clause. The list of reflexive pronouns includes self, self, self,
self, self, self, self, self, self, self, self.
iv) Demonstrative pronouns–Those used within a sentence to refer to something unique.
There are only four demonstrative pronouns— this, these, those — but sometimes the
implementation maybe a little difficult. This and that, while these and those are plurals,
are singular.
v) Possessive pronouns–those that denote ownership or possession. Examples include
mine, her, hers, yours, yours, ours, theirs, of whom. Take the example: mine is this cat.
Mine shows ownership, the cat belongs to me.
vi) Relative pronouns–those referred to above, acting to introduce an adjective (relative)
clause. Generally, they may appear after a noun to help clarify the sentence or provide
additional information. Examples include how, who, who, who, who, who, whose.
vii) Interrogative pronouns –these are those that ask a question. Types are: who, who,
who, what, what, what.

3. Articles:
In English, there are only three articles: a, an, the.
There are two forms of articles: "a" and "an" (indefinite) or the definite-" the. Oe must
also know when not to use a post (article).

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Indefinite Article “a/an”

‘A’ and ‘an’ are articles that are indefinite. These are used when thinking about something
that the person you are referring to is not directly exposed. ‘A’ and ‘an’ are used in front
of nouns that add something or someone you have not previously mentioned. They are
used to speak about one’s occupation as well.
▪ You use ‘a’ when a consonant starts with the noun you're referring to: a home, a
building, a vehicle.
▪ When the noun you refer to begins with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u), you use ‘an’.
This law is modified by pronunciation. It is the tone, not the pronunciation, that matters.
If the next word starts with a consonant sound as we say it, for example, "university,"
then we're using ‘a’. If the next word starts with a vowel sound when we say it, we use a
vowel sound, for example, "hour." In the beginning, we say "university" with a "y" sound
as if "you-niversity" were spelled. Therefore, "a university" is correct.
We are saying "hour" with a silent h as if "our" were spelled. So, it's true, "an hour."

Definite article “The”

• You use “the” when you know the listener knows what particular person/something
you're thinking about or can understand.
• You should also use "The" when the thing you're thinking about has already been
discussed/known
• We're using "The" to think about the world's geographical points.
Example - The Pole of the North; It's the equator.
• We use "The" to speak of the oceans and seas of the rivers.
Example - The English branch of the Nile and the Atlantic.
• We also use "The" in front of some nouns when we know that there is only one
thing.
The Sun; The light.

In general, we typically do not use any article to talk about things.

Example - People are worried about rising crime.
▪ While thinking about sports, you don't use a post.
Example - My son is playing soccer; Tennis is expensive.
▪ When thinking about things in general, you don't use an article before endless
nouns.
Example - For any organization, information is important; For you, coffee is bad.

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