Understanding Nouns: Types, Usage, and Examples
Understanding Nouns
Of all the parts of speech, nouns are perhaps the most important. A noun is a word that identifies a person, animal, place, thing, or idea.
Abstract Nouns
An abstract noun is a type of noun that refers to something with which a person cannot physically interact. Examples of common abstract nouns include:
Emotions/Feelings
- Love
- Hate
- Anger
- Peace
- Pride
- Sympathy
States/Attributes
- Bravery
- Loyalty
- Honesty
- Integrity
- Pain
- Misery
Ideas/Concepts/Ideals
- Belief
- Dream
- Justice
- Truth
- Faith
Movements/Events
- Progress
- Education
- Hospitality
- Leisure
- Trouble
Nouns with the following suffixes are often abstract: -tion, -ism, -ity, -ment, -ness, -age, -ance, -ence, -ship, -ability, -acy
Concrete Nouns
Concrete nouns are people, places, or things that we experience with our five senses. They are the opposite of abstract nouns. If a noun is abstract, it describes something you cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell.
Concrete nouns are things that you can experience through your five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Examples include: student, firefighter, pencil, computer, road.
Proper Nouns
Proper nouns have two distinct features: They name specific, one-of-a-kind items, and they begin with capital letters, no matter where they occur within a sentence.
Countable Nouns
Countable nouns are for things we can count using numbers. They have a singular and a plural form. The singular form can use the determiner “a” or “an”. If you want to ask about the quantity of a countable noun, you ask “How many?” combined with the plural countable noun. For example: three dogs, one dog.
Uncountable Nouns
Uncountable nouns are for things that we cannot count with numbers. They may be the names for abstract ideas or qualities or for physical objects that are too small or too amorphous to be counted (liquids, powders, gases, etc.). Uncountable nouns are used with a singular verb. They usually do not have a plural form. For example: tea, sugar, water, air.
Common Nouns
A noun is a word that names a person, animal, place, thing, or idea. Common nouns are everywhere, and you use them all the time, even if you don’t realize it. Wherever you go, you’ll find at least one common noun. Examples include: street, closet, bathroom, school, mall, gas station.
Personal Pronouns
A personal pronoun is a pronoun that is associated primarily with a particular person, in the grammatical sense.
When discussing “person” in terms of the grammatical, the following rules apply:
- First person, as in “I”
- Second person, as in “you”
- Third person, as in “It, he, she”
Personal Pronouns as Subject Pronouns
When a personal pronoun takes the place of a noun as the subject of a sentence, it is both a personal pronoun and a subject pronoun. A subject pronoun is any pronoun that is used to replace a common or proper noun as a sentence’s subject.
If you are using a personal pronoun to talk about a person, animal, place, or thing that also happens to be the subject of a sentence, then it is classified as both a personal pronoun and a subject pronoun.
Personal Pronouns as Object Pronouns
When a personal pronoun is the direct or indirect object of a verb, or when it is used as the object of a preposition, it is called an object pronoun. An object pronoun is any pronoun that is affected by the action the subject of the sentence takes.
The personal pronouns that are used as object pronouns are different than the personal pronouns that are used as subject pronouns, but they are just as important. There are seven object pronouns that also happen to be personal pronouns: me, you, him, her, it, us, and them
Subject pronoun: it, you, what, I, he, she, we, who, they.
Object pronoun: it, you, what, me, him, her, us, whom, them