instead of n., which may be used for proper nouns or neuter nouns instead. Nouns in the dictionaries of such languages are demarked by the abbreviation s. Many European languages use a cognate of the word substantive as the basic term for noun (for example, Spanish sustantivo, "noun"). (The word nominal is now sometimes used to denote a class that includes both nouns and adjectives.)
Similarly, the Latin nōmen includes both nouns (substantives) and adjectives, as originally did the English word noun, the two types being distinguished as nouns substantive and nouns adjective (or substantive nouns and adjective nouns, or short substantives and adjectives). Because adjectives share these three grammatical categories, adjectives are placed in the same class as nouns. In Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, for example, nouns are categorized by gender and inflected for case and number. The word classes were defined partly by the grammatical forms that they take. The English word noun is derived from the Latin term, through the Anglo-Norman noun. All of these terms for "noun" were also words meaning "name". The term used in Latin grammar was nōmen. The Ancient Greek equivalent was ónoma (ὄνομα), referred to by Plato in the Cratylus dialog, and later listed as one of the eight parts of speech in The Art of Grammar, attributed to Dionysius Thrax (2nd century BC). In Yāska's Nirukta, the noun ( nāma) is one of the four main categories of words defined. Word classes (parts of speech) were described by Sanskrit grammarians from at least the 5th century BC. "As far as we know, every language makes a grammatical distinction that looks like a noun verb distinction." In English, nouns are those words which can occur with articles and attributive adjectives and can function as the head of a noun phrase. The syntactic rules for nouns differ between languages. Lexical categories ( parts of speech) are defined in terms of the ways in which their members combine with other kinds of expressions. Many different types of nouns exist, including proper and common nouns, collective nouns, mass nouns, and so forth. Linguistically, a noun is a member of a large, open part of speech whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition. Thus, actions and states of existence can also be expressed by verbs, qualities by adjectives, and places by adverbs. However, noun is not a semantic category, so it cannot be characterized in terms of its meaning.
terrible fright (the noun fright can co-occur with the adjective terrible).*an afraid ( afraid is an adjective: cannot co-occur with the article a).a fright ( fright is a noun: can co-occur with the indefinite article a).*constant circulate ( circulate is a verb: cannot co-occur with the attributive adjective constant).constant circulation ( circulation is a noun: can co-occur with the attributive adjective constant).*the baptise ( baptise is a verb: cannot co-occur with a definite article).the name ( name is a noun: can co-occur with a definite article the).In the following, an asterisk (*) in front of an example means that this example is ungrammatical. Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit/The oldest sins the newest kind of ways? Henry IV Part 2, act 4 scene 5.Ī noun can co-occur with an article or an attributive adjective.Plato was an influential philosopher in ancient Greece.Please hand in your assignments by the end of the week.Word that functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects Examples