What Are Nouns?

Nouns.

Nouns are things, objects, names of people and places. They can also be non-physical like feelings or concepts.

Nouns can also be verbs - which makes things a little bit more confusing. An easy way to work out if a word is a noun or a verb is to substitute the word for another one that you know the class of.

For example: Kelly and Sophie are watching the swimming competition.

The verbs in this sentence: [are watching]

The nouns in this sentence: [swimming competition]

If you were unsure about the word class of [swimming competition], swap it for something else!

For example: Kelly and Sophie are watching the television.

We know that [television] is a noun because it`s a thing/object, therefore, [swimming competition] must also be a noun phrase!

There are different types of nouns too:

Proper vs Common:

John, Leeds vs person, place

Concrete vs Abstract:

pencil, cup vs happiness, lecture

Count (how many) vs Mass (how much):

cars, chairs vs water, sand

To distinguish between count and mass = you can add -s to the end of the word.

Can you come up with any examples of nouns?

Next article will be on Adjectives :)