NUMBER OF NOUNS

Number of Nouns

An English noun can be singular or plural in number.

1. Generally speaking, a singular noun becomes plural by adding 's' to is, such as persons, girls, dogs, cats, books, chairs, etc.  Many common nouns become plural in this way.
2. But a large number of other common nouns do not form their plural number by adding 's', but by adding 'es', 'ies', or 'ves'.  Some examples are hero-heroes, church-churches, lady-ladies, city-cities, shelf-shelves, wife-wives. Other irregular methods are seen in words like man-men, tooth-teeth, child-children.

Examples:

#     He is a nice man. Have you come across nice men?

note : come across is an idiom which means meet/find by chance.

Types of Nouns

TYPES OF NOUNS

A noun is a name for a person, animal, thing, place or idea.  There are these types of nouns: common, proper, material, collective, abstract.

1. Common Noun

Common nouns are the general names of people, animals, things and places.  Pupil, lady, hen, duck, pen, desk, etc. are common nouns.

2. Proper Noun

John, China, London, Harvard University, Reader's Digest, etc. are proper nouns, which refer to special persons, places and things. The first letter of such a noun is in capital letters.

Proper nouns include :

• Days of the week ( Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,...)
• Months (January, February, March, ...)
• States (New Hampshire, Vermont, California, Indonesia, ...)
• People (Jonathan, Ahmad, President Roosevelt, Uncle Agus, ...)
• Institutions (Mercy Hospital, Charter Oaks School, SMP Marsudirini, ...)
• Geographical terms (Southern Hemisphere, New England, Atlantic Ocean, Merapi Mountain,...)
• Storms (Hurricane Ivan, Tropical Storm Beth, ...)

Example :

On Monday, I took my Aunt Indah to the Picasso Exhibit at the museum.

3.  Material Noun

Water, air, sand, sugar, flour, oil, etc. are the material things in life and they are called material nouns.

4.  Collective Noun

When a noun stands for a number of persons or things as a single unit, it is a collective noun, such as team, crowd, etc.

5.  Abstract Noun

A large number of nouns refer to qualities such as love, hatred, honesty, kindness, and conditions such as happiness, sickness.  Such nouns are abstract in nature and are therefore called abstract nouns.