Nouns

Linguistic Overview

Nouns are a large, open lexical class, meaning there are many nouns in the English dictionary, and new nouns are added all the time, especially as new technologies, products, and methods are developed. Nouns can perform actions, be acted upon, hold states, and be possessive.

Lexical nouns can typically be grouped into one of the following categories (featuring example noun phrases; the underlined words are the actual nouns):

Living/Personified Beings — e.g.: my cousin Vicky • a mechanic • Fluffy the cat • aliens
Inanimate Objects — e.g.: a clock • shoelaces • ice cream • your car
Settings — e.g.: a supermarket • Tuesday afternoon • the bedroom • 8:00pm
Ideas, Information, & Emotions — e.g.: health • guilt • bad news • sanity
Activities & Events — e.g.: an announcement • water-skiing • a meeting • photography

Most common nouns are a single word, but compound nouns may feature multiple lexical terms that act together like one word. Furthermore, some proper nouns include multiple distinct words, yet together they are regarded as a single noun.

Nouns can be the the heads of noun phrases, which often include determiners and may feature modifiers, such as adjectives, prepositional phrases, etc. Sometimes a pronoun is used as a shortcut to represent a noun or noun phrase. In clauses, noun phrases serve most commonly as subjects and objects.

We use the term nominal to refer to grammar elements that play the same role as nouns (like pronouns, Gerunds, or Content Clauses) or to elements that are related to nouns.

Types of Nouns

Common vs. Proper

Most nouns are common nouns, and we can assume that common nouns are the ‘default’ type of noun. A noun is a common noun if it represents a category of person, of objects, of ideas, etc., and common noun terms can by applied to other nouns of the same category. For instance, even if we talk about a specific ‘secretary‘, ‘flower‘, or ‘party‘, the terms secretary, flower, or party can also be used for other secretaries, flowers, or parties.

Proper nouns, on the other hand, are specific to whatever they’re referring to. Proper nouns are names and titles and may include honorifics (like ‘Captain’, ‘Dr.’, or ‘Her Majesty’). For instance, ‘Jennifer‘, ‘the Burj Khalifa‘, and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird‘ are all proper nouns.

Common nouns are written in lower case (unless formatting — like the start of a sentence or inclusion in a media title — dictates capitalization). For proper nouns, the first letter of each word should be capitalized.

Countable vs. Uncountable

Most nouns are countable, meaning that each such noun is a discrete unit numbering 1, and we can count the quantity of all such nouns within a context. Countable nouns can be preceded by numerals or determiners of amount like ‘several’, ‘every’, and the article ‘a’ to express their quantity. Countable nouns have singular and plural forms.

Uncountable nouns do not have established units and cannot be counted with any consistent numbering system. Instead, we can measure them by volume (at least for concrete nouns). We can also use containers or other types of grouping — such as ‘bottle’, ‘box’, ‘handful’, ‘truckload’, etc. — to determine amounts.

Examples of concrete uncountable nouns include materials like ‘water’, ‘sand’, ‘wood’, or ‘beef’; classical elements like ‘air’ and ‘fire’; and experiences like ‘weather’ and ‘homework’.
‘luggage’ and ‘clothing’ are other notable examples of uncountable nouns.
Most abstract nouns are uncountable. A few examples are ‘advice’, ‘media’, ‘happiness’, ‘attention’, ‘corruption’, ‘speed’, and ‘education’.

A handful of words that refer to nouns are specific for countable nouns and have counterparts for uncountable nouns:


for COUNTABLE Nouns:	number	things	count	many	fewer
for UNCOUNTABLE Nouns:	amount	stuff	measure	much	less

Uncountable nouns behave like singular nouns in a couple ways: 1) they can be represented by the singular pronouns it, this, and that, and 2) accompanying verbs or auxiliary verbs use the same subject-verb agreement as with singular nouns (meaning the first verb in a verb string should end in ‘s’). One way that uncountable nouns differ from singular nouns is that they cannot be prefaced by the article ‘a’/’an’.

Plural Nouns

When there is any number other than 1 of a countable noun, the words takes on its plural form. Plural forms are used for multiple amounts, for fractions, and even for ‘zero’ instances.

For the vast majority of nouns, the plural form takes on an -s ending (for instance, the singular ‘desk’, ‘friend’, and ‘meeting’ become the plural ‘desks‘, ‘friends‘, and ‘meetings‘, respectively). For singular nouns with certain endings, their spelling may need to change slightly before adding the final -s:

Nouns ending in ‘s’ or ‘z’ double that letter if it is preceded by a vowel, but not if it is preceded by another consonant. Then, an ‘e’ is added before taking on a second and final ‘s’ for the plural form.
- ‘bus’ ⇨ ‘busses‘ | ‘lens’ ⇨ ‘lenses‘ | ‘quiz’ ⇨ ‘quizzes‘
Nouns ending in ‘ch’, ‘sh’, ‘x’, or a single ‘o’ add an ‘e’ before taking on the plural ‘s’.
- ‘couch’ ⇨ ‘couches‘ | ‘wish’ ⇨ ‘wishes‘ | ‘box’ ⇨ ‘boxes‘ | ‘hero’ ⇨ ‘heroes‘
Nouns ending in ‘f’ usually transform it into ‘ve’ before adding the plural ‘s’.
- ‘wolf’ ⇨ ‘wolves‘ | ‘leaf’ ⇨ ‘leaves‘
Nouns ending in ‘y’ preceded by a consonant (but not ‘y’ preceded by a vowel) usually transform it into ‘i’ before adding the plural ‘s’.
- ‘baby’ ⇨ ‘babies‘ | ‘key’ ⇨ ‘keys‘ | ‘activity’ ⇨ ‘activities‘

When there is a pronounced vowel sound just before the final ‘s’ (as is the case with all the bulleted examples above), the final ‘s’ makes the /z/ sound. But when the plural ‘s’ follows a consonant sound, it is pronounced as /s/.

Irregular Plurals

While most plurals simply take an -s ending, certain others undergo more complex morphological changes (or in some instances, no change at all) from their singular to plural forms. Here are just some of the more common irregular plurals:

People: ‘person’ ⇨ ‘people‘ | ‘child’ ⇨ ‘children‘ | ‘woman’ ⇨ ‘women‘ | ‘man’ ⇨ ‘men‘
Animals: ‘deer’ ⇨ ‘deer‘ | ‘sheep’ ⇨ ‘sheep‘ | ‘fish’ ⇨ ‘fish‘ | ‘mouse’ ⇨ ‘mice‘ | ‘goose’ ⇨ ‘geese‘ | ‘ox’ ⇨ ‘oxen‘
Body: ‘tooth’ ⇨ ‘teeth‘ | ‘foot’ ⇨ ‘feet‘
Science: ‘fungus’ ⇨ ‘fungi‘ | ‘nucleus’ ⇨ ‘nuclei‘ | ‘analysis’ ⇨ ‘analyses‘ | ‘bacteria’ ⇨ ‘bacterium‘ | ‘focus’ ⇨ ‘foci‘ | ‘criterium’ ⇨ ‘criteria‘ | ‘species’ ⇨ ‘species‘
Academia: ‘datum’ ⇨ ‘data‘ | ‘syllabus’ ⇨ ‘syllabi‘ | ‘appendix’ ⇨ ‘appendices‘ | ‘parenthesis’ ⇨ ‘parentheses‘ | ‘index’ ⇨ ‘indices‘
Other: ‘series’ ⇨ ‘series‘ | ‘die’ ⇨ ‘dice‘ | ‘paparazzo’ ⇨ ‘paparazzi‘ | ‘aircraft’ ⇨ ‘aircraft‘ | ‘medium’ ⇨ ‘media‘

See more examples in Insights to English’s interactive word list:

Collective Nouns

Collective nouns represent groups of other nouns. In fact, the word ‘group’ itself is a collective noun. Other common examples are ‘team’, ‘pack’, ‘collection’, ‘set’, ‘herd’, and ‘flock’. Most collective terms are specific to the nouns they group. For instance, you could have a ‘batch of cookies’ or a ‘colony of bees’, but not a ‘~~colony of cookies~~‘ or a ‘~~batch of bees~~‘.

Here are some examples:

People: band, cast, class, company, crew, family, gang, society, squad, team
Items: batch, bunch, cluster, collection, packet, set
Animals: brood, colony, flock, herd, pack, litter, school, swarm
- some collective nouns are hyper-specific to a genus or family of animals, including a ‘tower of giraffes’, an ‘unkindness of ravens’, and a ‘pride of lions’, just to name a few.

Although each collection contains multiple nouns within, the count of a collection should be considered on its own level; any collective noun could be singular or plural.

For instance, one deck of cards has 54 individual playing cards (assuming there are two jokers). But the collective noun ‘deck’ is singular. There may instead be 3 decks of cards (totaling 162 cards), in which case ‘decks’ is plural.

Ever-Plurals

Some nouns only have a plural form. Here are a few examples:

Standard Ever-Plurals: ‘leftovers’, ‘ruins’, ‘amends’, ‘outskirts’, ‘shenanigans’, ‘news’, ‘billiards’, ‘mathematics’, ‘hysterics’, ‘tropics’, ‘earnings’, ‘measles’, ‘acrobatics’
2-in-1 Objects: ‘trousers’, ‘scissors’, ‘goggles’, ‘pliers’, ‘shorts’, ‘binoculars’

Some of these are plainly countable nouns, but even if there is only one of them, we still do not use the plural form. Any determiners that come before ever-plurals cannot be ones used for singular nouns, like ‘a(n)’ or ‘one’.

Other Noun Forms

Suffixes for Nouns

Some nouns have roots in other parts of speech. To turn a verb, adjective, etc. into a noun, we usually attach a suffix to the original root. We can also add certain suffixes to some other nouns to alter the meaning slightly.

Root	Suffix	Meaning	Examples
VERB	-al	action or process	arrival • betrayal • rehearsal • reversal
	-ant/-ent	noun which is known for	consultant • occupant • stimulant
	-ee	person who receives	amputee • employee • nominee
	-er/-or*	noun which does or gives	actor • boiler • lawmaker • trainer
	-ment	process, result, or state	deployment • judgment • retirement
	-sion/-tion	action or process	collision • formation • omission • repetition
	-ure	process or product of	departure • failure • pleasure • procedure
ADJ	-ness	state or quality of	darkness • illness • kindness • weakness
NOUN	-eer	person who controls	auctioneer • engineer • puppeteer
	-hood	state or condition	childhood• livelihood • statehood
	-ship	condition or relationship	apprenticeship • ownership • membership
[misc]	-age	state, condition, or process	coverage • pilgrimage • wreckage
	-ance/-ence	state or quality of	confidence • importance • maintenance
	-dom	a state of	boredom • fandom • freedom • kingdom
	-ism	belief, system, or practice	activism • patriotism • skepticism
	-ist	believer or practitioner	activist • journalist • materialist
	-ity	state or quality	disparity • insanity • rarity • validity

* The -er/or suffix is sometimes replaced by -(r)ess as a feminine form.

If the original root ended in a -y, it is replaced be an -i before adding the suffix. For instance, ‘happy’ and ‘marry’ are transformed in ‘happiness’ and ‘marriage’ respectively.

In addition to the suffixes listed in the table above, you can attach the suffix -ing to most verbs and use the results as nouns. These are called Gerunds if they retain the properties of verbs (though some, like painting or blessing, don’t), and they generally indicate an activity or event.

Compound Nouns

Compound nouns are the combination of two (or more) words that together form a unique meaning. That meaning may be a variation of the final word of the compound (for instance, a bedroom is a type of room) or it maybe be something entirely different. The final word that makes up a compound noun is usually a noun itself, though this is not always so.

Compound words come in three types according to how they are written: closed, hyphenated, and open.

Closed Compounds have no space or marks between the words that make up the compound.
- eg: bookstore, bottleneck, classroom, eyebrow, firefighter, football, haircut, lifeguard, meatball, newspaper, scarecrow, spaceship, sunflower, toolbox, toothpaste, yearbook
Hyphenated Compounds have a hyphen between the words that make up the compound.
- eg: grown-ups, jack-of-all-trades, mother-in-law, self-esteem, six-pack
Open Compounds have a space between the words that make up the compound.
- eg: bath tub, bus stop, fish tank, girl scout, hair spray, high school, ice cream, parking lot, peanut butter, stop sign, swimming pool, train station, washing machine

Although compound nouns are made up of multiple words, they should be treated both semantically and syntactically as a single word.

To make a closed compound or open compound plural — or to otherwise change the form of the noun — only the final word that makes up the compound should change (for example, the plural of ‘girl scout’ is ‘girl scouts’, not ‘~~girls scout~~‘ or ‘~~girls scouts~~‘). For hyphenated compounds, it depends on which word represents the aspect of the noun that is plural (for example, the plural of ‘mother-in-law’ is ‘mothers-in-law’, not ‘~~mother-in-laws~~‘).

Possessives

The possessive form is used to indicate that the noun has ownership of, has created, controls, or otherwise is strongly associated with another noun (which typically follows immediately after in the sentence).

A noun takes the possessive form by adding an apostrophe and an s at the end of the word – as in “Kevin’s” or “the company’s“. If the noun is plural and ends with an ‘s’, then we simply add the apostrophe without adding another s, as in “our kids’ toys” or “the companies’ policies”.

Some writers do not include the s after the apostrophe even after singular nouns that already end with an ‘s’, while other writers do. For example, both “Agnes’s” and “Agnes’” are acceptable. Whichever form a writer decides to use, it is good practice to be consistent with the use of that final s or not across a piece of writing.

Personal pronouns can also possessive, though they take on special forms instead of adding ‘s at the end.

Noun Phrases

Nouns are often accompanied by determiners and modifiers that might specify or describe the noun. Collectively, these form noun phrases. When considering the role of nouns within a sentence or clause, it’s usually entire noun phrases, not just the individual nouns, that apply.

Here are the most common components that may be included in a noun phrase:

Determiner > Adjectives > Attributive Noun > Main Noun(s) > Modifier Phrase

The ‘main noun’ is the head or nucleus of the noun phrase; it’s what the speaker is ultimately talking about, and everything else modifies or refers back to the main noun.

What follows is a more detailed list of possible noun phrase components. Note that it’s rare for any noun phrase to have every one of these components; the only component that is required for a noun phrase is the main noun.

Before the Main Noun:

Determiners – if there are more than one, they come in the order of Pre-Determiner, Central Determiner, then Post-Determiner
Limiter Adjective – adjectives like ‘only’, ‘exact’, or ‘complete’ that specify which noun is being referred to (superlative adjectives can also go here)
Pre-Nominal Adjectives – these are descriptors that are characteristic of the main noun. With multiple such adjectives, they are ordered from most the subjective and circumstantial to the most objective and intrinsic
Attributive Noun – a ‘category noun’ that specifies the main noun; read the Noun Adjuncts section below for details

Components that come before the main noun have a pretty strict order, as indicated above.

Main Noun(s):

There may be more than one main noun, in which case they are linked with a Coordinating Conjunction (and; or; but not; etc.) before the last listed noun. If there are three or more, they are typically separated with commas. While each of these nouns have their own meanings, they work collectively as one when it comes to their role in the clause.

Only lexical nouns may be accompanied by modifiers before or after in the same noun phrase. Other nominals like pronouns and Content Clauses are not the nucleus of noun phrases, but rather the noun phrases in their entirety.

After the Main Noun:

Appositive Noun – a noun that renames the main noun; read the Noun Adjuncts section below for details
Post-Nominal Adjective – these are descriptors that express circumstantial, but often critical, attributes of the main noun
Relative Clause – clauses that provide more information about the nouns they follow
Modifier Phrases – may come in the form of prepositional phrases, Participial Phrases, Infinitive Phrases, or even Adverbial Clauses; there’s no limit to the number of modifier phrases that can follow a noun

Components that come after the main noun may come in just about any order. Often, single words and shorter phrases come before longer phrases and clauses. A speaker may rearrange these components in whatever way aids comprehension or forms a rhythm. In general, it’s best practice to limit the number of post-nominal modifiers for the sake of comprehension.

Roles of Nominals

Noun phrases — whether they are full phrases with lexical nouns as their nucleus, as seen above; solitary words like nouns or pronouns; or alternatives like Content Clauses — fill various roles within clauses. Since the primary roles of subject, direct or indirect object, and predicative nominal are defined in relation to verbs, the examples featured show the verb underlined while the noun phrase is bold.

Subjects

Subjects are typically the nouns that their clauses are ultimately all about, like the topic of the sentence. The subject of a clause is the nominal that owns the verb, whether it’s enacting an action, holding a state, or linking to a modifier or another noun phrase. In most cases when the verb is an action verb, subjects are the nouns that carry out those verbs, which make them agents (though there are exceptions to this, as with Passive Voice).

Subjects usually come before the verb, especially in the declarative structure.

eg: “The dog ate my homework.”
eg: “Sasha is the winner!”

Direct & Indirect Objects

A direct object is a noun phrase that the verb applies to. Direct objects that follow action verbs are always patients, which means they are affected by the action of the main verb. When following stative verbs, direct objects are called themes (in which case they are held, in some regard, but not altered). Direct objects come after transitive verbs, but not always immediately after.

eg: “The dog ate my homework.”
eg: “Throw me the ball, please.”

An indirect object is a nominal that is affected by an action verb, even though the verb does not act upon it directly. Often, the indirect object receives a direct object, which makes them targets, or recipients. Indirect objects usually come immediately after ditransitive verbs but before the direct objects.

eg: “I asked you a question.”
eg: “Throw me the ball, please.”

Predicative Nominals

A predicative nominal is a type of subject complement, which means they follow linking verbs. Predicative nominals either categorize the subject or equate to the subject.

“When did you become a vegan?”
“Sasha is the winner!”

SYNTACTIC ROLE	VERB VALENCY	SEMANTIC ROLE
SUBJECT	any	agent – Active Voice only (patient in Passive Voice)
DIRECT OBJECT	transitive (action or stative verb)	patient after action verbs; theme after stative verbs
INDIRECT OBJECT	ditransitive only (action verb)	target/recipient
PREDICATIVE NOMINAL	linking verb	category or renamer

Modifier Phrase Objects

Modifier phrases often need nominals to complete their meaning. Such phrases may include prepositional phrases, participial phrases, or infinitive phrases. In these examples, the nucleus of the phrase (indicating the type of phrase) is italicized.

“The keys on the countertop belong to Kevin.”
“The culprit was caught stealing a car.”
“Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.”

There are myriad semantic roles that modifier phrase objects can take. For example, objects that follow the preposition ‘by’ might be agents; objects of participles and infinitives are typically patients; objects that follow the prepositions ‘for’ or ‘to’ are often targets/recipients. Other modifier phrase objects might not fall into any of these types, but instead fulfill other roles like that of an instrument, a location, and more.

Noun Adjuncts

Some nominal roles are not grammatically essential but may aid in communication.

Direct Addresses

A noun can be used to call out the name, title, or other identifier of the person being spoken to. For example, “Cameron, could you come here for a moment?” or “We don’t have any of those in stock, ma’am.” Direct addresses are usually proper nouns, but they may also be honorifics or other terms of respect, or they may be terms of endearment.

Attributive Nouns

An attributive noun generally comes immediately before another noun that it modifies. Attributive nouns, also called qualifying nouns, express a category that the following noun belongs to in order to specify that noun. For example, in “Catherine loves romance novels,” the term ‘romance’ is a category that ‘novels’ belongs to, distinguishing it from other categories of novels that Catherine might not love.

When a particular attributive noun and following noun are pair frequently enough, that pairing may become a compound noun over time. For instance, one could argue that in “I tried some spicy Indian food for the first time,” the word ‘Indian’ is an attribute noun. On the other hand, one could also argue that the term ‘Indian food’ is an open compound noun as it consistently refers to a specific cuisine.

Appositives

Appositives are nouns or noun phrases that come immediately after other nominals and rename them. In most cases, either the main noun or the appositive is a proper noun, and the other is a common noun. However, it’s possible for both to be proper nouns or both to be common nouns.

In the example “I gave the present to my youngest brother, Sergei,” the name Sergei is an appositive. But we can flip the nouns with “I gave the present to Sergei, my youngest brother,” so that the name Sergei is the featured noun and ‘my youngest brother’ is the appositive.

Commas often set appositives apart from the rest of the clause, as in, “Patricia, the president of the PTA, has called another meeting.” Indefinite appositives always need punctuation like commas, parenthesis, or em dashes. Definite appositives don’t necessarily need punctuation, but the inclusion of commas may help with readability the more syllables the appositive has.

Advanced Concepts

Alternatives to Noun Phrases

Instead of a traditional noun phrase that has a noun as its nucleus, an entire Content Clause can act as a noun phrase. For example in “Whoever stole my lunch had better pay for it!” the Content Clause is the subject of the sentence.

Similarly, Gerund Phrases and Infinitive Phrases can act as complete noun phrases, as in “My favorite activity is playing board games with friends,” or “Her objective was to reach the finish line“.

If it helps, try replacing these alternatives with simple nouns, as in “Gerry had better pay for it,” “My favorite activity is board games,” and “Her objective was completion.” Notice how the structure of the sentence remains the same, and the meaning is not all that different. This shows that Content Clauses, Gerund Phrases, and some Infinitive Phrases are interchangeable with other nominals.

Content Clauses, Gerund Phrases, and Infinitive Phrases are rarely ever accompanied by modifiers.

Substantives

A substantive is a word that is usually a determiner or an adjective, but that is unaccompanied by its noun, either because that noun is obvious or because it has already been specified in the context. In such cases, these determiners and adjectives actually play the grammatical role of the very nouns that are missing.

Substantive Adjectives

Sometimes, an adjective can be used as a nominal. In this case, the substantive adjective represents all the nouns which the adjective would apply to, sometimes for the purpose of communicating general truths. For example, ‘the rich‘, ‘the marginalized‘, and ‘the unemployed‘ may be used to represent ‘rich people’, ‘marginalized people’, and ‘people who are unemployed’, respectively. Substantive adjectives need to be preceded by a determiner — almost always ‘the’.

Participle Adjectives often work well as substantives.

Substantive Possessives

There is a form of possessives that is based on both possessive determiners and personal pronouns, serving the function of both and playing the role of a nominal within their sentences. For example, instead of saying “This is my jacket,” you could say, “This is mine,” (assuming the jacket is clear from context). The other Substantive Possessives are ‘ours’, ‘yours’, ‘hers’, ‘his’, ‘its’, ‘theirs’, and ‘whose’.

Substantive Possessives represent both the possessor and the possessee.

Substantive Quantifiers

Determiners of Amount can also be substantives in their nouns are already known. For example, the answer to “What happened to the biscuits?” might be “Most were eaten, but a couple fell on the floor.” We could instead insert the noun ‘biscuits’ after ‘most’ and ‘a couple’, but that isn’t necessary since it’s already clear what the two speakers are talking about.

Virtually any Determiner of Amount can be substantive, including numerals (‘one’, ‘a dozen’, ’99’), comparatives (‘fewer’, ‘more’), sufficiencies (‘too many’, ‘enough’, ‘plenty’), distributives (‘each’, ‘either’, ‘both’), and more. However, there are a few like ‘no’ and ‘every’ that do not work as substantives.

Tricky Uncountables

Many food ingredients may be uncountable, although for some like ‘chicken’ or ‘chocolate’, it depends on how they are viewed. For instance, ‘chicken’ may be referred to as a type of meat, in which case it’s an uncountable noun; or it may be referred to as a portion of a dish — as in a leg, a wing, or even an entire bird — in which case it’s a countable noun.

While this may initially seem like an inconsistency, keep in mind that these nouns and similar ones have multiple definitions. For any one definition in particular, that noun is either consistently countable or consistently uncountable; the countability only varies when contrasting different definitions of the same word.

Definite Noun Phrases

A nominal may be definite or indefinite. Definite nominals indicate specific nouns, perhaps ones that are unique or that are clearly identifiable within the context. Indefinite nominals are more generic and may reference any number of similar nouns.

All proper nouns are definite. Common nouns may be definite or indefinite, usually depending on determiners; determiners like ‘the’, ‘these’, ‘every’, and ‘my’ establish their nouns as definite, while determiners like ‘a’, ‘any’, ‘many’, and numerals establish their nouns as indefinite.

There are some grammatical differences in the ways we use definite vs. indefinite nominals:

An answer to “Which one?” should be a definite noun, not an indefinite one.
In the construction “There is/are ____”, the noun phrase should be indefinite.
Predicative nominals are usually indefinite when they describe the subject, but definite when they identify the subject.
Definite appositives don’t necessarily need commas or other punctuation marks to set them apart, but indefinite appositives do.

English Grammar Encyclopedia for Educators