A review, hopefully…

Parts of Speech: Nouns

A person, place, thing or idea.Nouns can be classified as:

common or proper concrete or abstract singular or plural masculine, feminine or neuter

Nominative case, Objective Case or Possessive

collective (sometimes)

A noun is…

Common: a general noun that refers to no particular person, place, thing, or idea

ship, teacher, store, religionProper: SPECIFIC people, places,

things, or ideasU.S.S. Enterprise, Mr. Hostetler, Wal-Mart, Christianity

Proper nouns are always CAPITALIZED!

Common or Proper?

Concrete: people, places or things that can be seen, heard, smelled, touched OR tasted.

Chair, wind, poop, flatulenceAbstract: IDEAS that are in the mind or

feelings that may be experienced but cannot be perceived by the senses

Love, independence, freedom, democracy, angerWe may be able to see signs of “love”

or “anger” but we cannot see anger itself.

Concrete or Abstract?

Singular: ONE and ONLY ONE thingBoat, child, turd, booger, cootie, moose

Plural: More than oneBoats, children, turds, boogers, cooties, moose

How do I tell if moose is singular or plural?LOOK AT THE VERB:

The moose were grazing next to Mr. Hostetler’s momma.

The moose was grazing next to Mr. Hostetler’s momma.

Singular or Plural?

The vast majority of nouns in English are neuter—they have no specific gender to which they are associated.

Tree, chair, door, pencil, etc.Masculine: Associated to males

Boy, uncle, man, grandfather, rooster, bull

Feminine: Associated to femalesAunt, girl, sister, wife, hen, cow

Masculine, feminine, or neuter?

Refer to a group of peopleTeam, choir, Veterans of Foreign Wars

Collective Nouns should be treated as SINGULAR in agreement unless they are PLURAL (Referring to more than one GROUP)

The team was happy with its performance.The teams were happy with their

performances.

Collective Nouns

A noun made up of two or more words acting as a single unit

May be written as:separate words (life preserver; coffee

table)hyphenated (sergeant-at-arms; daughter-

in-law)combined (battlefield; dreamland)

Compound Nouns

Case refers to understanding HOW a noun is used in a sentence. It may not seem THAT important now, but is ESSENTIAL with pronouns.

Nominative case: Noun is used as the SUBJECT of a sentence or clause:

Mr. Hostetler cleared the classroom with his foul gas.Mr. Hostetler is in the NOMINATIVE

case because he is the SUBJECT of the sentence.

The CASE of a noun

When a noun is used as a direct object, indirect object or object of a preposition it is in the OBJECTIVE case.Mr. Hostetler cleared the classroom with his

foul gas.In the same sentence CLASSROOM and GAS

are OBJECTS. They answer the questions WHO or WHAT:

What was cleared? Classroom

With what was the classroom cleared?gas

The Objective Case

Nouns that show ownership

Usually have an ‘s on themMr. Hostetler’s mommaMrs. Regan’s restraining order

The child’s temper tantrum

Possessives