Survey of English Grammar Wiki: Week 4

Nouns

1. Semantic test:
   • Nouns name persons, things or places
   • Problems:
     • Abstract nouns (often properties): honesty, happiness
     • Nouns denoting events or activities: party, rodeo, development
2. Morphological test:
   • Nouns can combine with a plural morpheme (-(e)s) to mark plurality
   • Problems:
     • not all nouns form plural in -s: children
     • not all nouns have singular/plural distinction: milk (no plural); scissors, cattle (no singular); sheep (identical form in sg. and pl.)
3. Syntactic test:
   • Nouns can occur with the possessive 's, i.e. in the environment: __ 's
   • Problem:
     • The possessive 's is a phrasal affix, i.e. it attaches to the right edge of a noun phrase, independent of the part of speech of the word at the right edge. We can construct examples where this word is NOT a noun: [a colleague of mine]'s car got stolen.
   • Nouns can occur between a determiner and a verb, i.e. in the environment: Det __ V
   • Problem:
     • not all nouns can combine with a determiner, in particular proper names cannot: (*The) Pat walked.

Subclasses of noun

Common nouns

1. Count nouns
   • Examples:chair, bottle, tool, clue
   • Characteristics:
     • plural form is possible
     • needs a determiner when used in the singular
     • combines with determiners such as a, every, many, few
     • does not combine with determiners such as much, little
2. Non-count (mass nouns)
   • Examples:furniture, equipment, evidence, music, advice, air, etc.
   • Characteristics:
     • no plural form is possible
     • does not need a determiner
     • combines with determiners such as some, much, little
     • does not combine with determiners such as a, every, many, few
3. Count and Non-count nouns
   • Examples:cake, beer
   • Characteristics:
     • a plural form is possible
     • does not need a determiner when used in the singular
     • combines with determiners such as some, much, little e.g. Would you like some cake?
     • combines with determiners such as a, every, many, few</> e.g. We need to buy a cake for her birthday.

Proper nouns

1. Examples: Chris, London
2. Characteristics:
   • no plural form is possible
   • does not allow a determiner at all

Pronouns

Pronouns	Examples	Characteristics
Personal
Possessive	mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs	has the same distribution as an NP, but denotes an entity together with a possessive relation, i.e. mine refers to an entity that belongs to the speaker.
Reflexive	ends in -self/selves: myself, yourself, herself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves
Reciprocal	each other, one another
Relative
Interrogative	who, which, whom, that	stand at the beginning of a relative clause

Exercises on Nouns

Noun Phrases

Exercises on Nouns and NPs

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