1. Nouns
A noun names a person, place, thing or idea. Nouns give names of concrete or abstract things in our lives. Nouns are usually the first words which small children learn. A noun can function in a sentence as a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, a subject complement, an object complement, an appositive, an adjective or an adverb.
Example: Late last year our neighbours bought a goat.
Portia White was an opera singer.
The bus inspector looked at all the passengers' passes.
2. Noun Gender
The Noun-Gender tells us about the sex of the noun.In Grammar-Nouns, there are FOUR GENDERS.
3. Masculine gender:
A noun is said to be in the Masculine gender if it refers to a male character or member of a species.
Man, lion, hero, boy, king, horse and actor are nouns of masculine gender.
Example:
• A boy is playing in the play-ground.
• Hero of the movie is not a native of this country.
In these sentences the words “boy” and “hero” are masculine-gender nouns.
4. Feminine gender:
A noun is said to be in the feminine gender if it refers to a female member of a species.
Woman, lioness, heroine, girl, mare, niece, empress, cow and actress are few of the feminine-gender nouns that we use.
Example:
• A girl is playing in the play-ground.
• Heroine of the movie is not a native of this country.
In these sentences the words “girl” and “heroine” are feminine-gender nouns.
5. Common gender:
A noun is said to be in Common gender if it refers to a member of species which can be a male or a female.
Child, student, friend, applicant, candidate, servant, member,
parliamentarian and leader are few of the common-gender nouns.
Example:
• A child is playing in the play-ground.
• A Parliamentarian should have command over his language.
In these sentences the words, “child” and “parliamentarian” are nouns of common gender.
6. Neuter gender
A noun is said to be in the neuter gender if it refers to a member of a species which is neither a male nor a female.
Normally nouns referring to lifeless objects are in neuter nouns.
Chair, table, tree, star, mountain, street, book, car, school,
paper, pencil and computer are few of the neuter nouns which We use regularly.
Example:
• Computer has brought about drastic changes in our lives.
• Tree is cleansing the air.
• Stars are not visible in the day-time.
• Books are our best friends.
In these sentences the words, “computer”, “tree”, “stars” and “books” are the neuter-gender nouns.
7. Nouns Plurals.
Most nouns change their form to indicate number by adding "-s" or "-es", as illustrated in the following pairs of sentences:
When Matthew was small he rarely told the truth if he thought he was going to be punished.
Many people do not believe that truths are self-evident.
As they walked through the silent house, they were startled by an unexpected echo.
I like to shout into the quarry and listen to the echoes that return.
He tripped over a box left carelessly in the hallway.
Since we are moving, we will need many boxes.
There are other nouns which form the plural by changing the last letter before adding "s". Some words ending in "f" form the plural by deleting "f" and adding "ves," and words ending in "y" form the plural by deleting the "y" and adding "ies," as in the following pairs of sentences:
The harbour at Marble Mountain has one wharf.
There are several wharves in Halifax Harbour.
Warsaw is their favourite city because it reminds them of their courtship.
The vacation my grandparents won includes trips to twelve European cities.
The children circled around the headmaster and shouted, "Are you a mouse or a man?"
The audience was shocked when all five men admitted that they were afraid of mice.
Other nouns form the plural irregularly.
8. Mutated Plurals.
There are several nouns that have irregular plural forms. Plurals formed in this way are sometimes called mutated (or mutating) plurals.
•more than one child = children
•more than one woman = women
•more than one man = men
•more than one person = people
•more than one goose = geese
•more than one mouse = mice
•more than one barracks = barracks
•more than one deer = deer
9. There are nouns that maintain their Latin or Greek form in the plural.
•more than one nucleus = nuclei
•more than one syllabus = syllabi
•more than one focus = foci
•more than one fungus = fungi
•more than one cactus = cacti (cactuses is acceptable)
•more than one thesis = theses
•more than one crisis = crises*
•more than one phenomenon = phenomena
•more than one index = indices (indexes is acceptable)
•more than one appendix = appendices (appendixes is acceptable)
•more than one criterion = criteria
10. A handful of nouns appear to be plural in form but take a singular verb:
•The news is bad.
•Gymnastics is fun to watch.
•Economics/mathematics/statistics is said to be difficult. ("Economics" can sometimes be a plural concept, as in "The economics of the situation demand that . . . .")
