Sri Lanka's Post War Views by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

Thursday 1 October 2009

Free English Lessons - Nouns

1. Nouns

A. One-word nouns
Noun endings: people who do things/people who come from places.

1. We use some words only as nouns: desk, hat, tree, etc.

2. However, we often make nouns from other words by adding differnt endings or suffixes and sometimes making other small changes. For example, if we add –er to a verb like play, we get the noun player, if we add –ity to the adjective active, we get the noun activity. There is no easy rule to tell us which endings to use to make nouns.

3. Typical endings which make nouns:
People who do things: actor, assistant, beggar, driver, engineer, historian, pianist.
People who come from places: Athenian, Berliner, Milanese, Muscovite, Roman.

B. Nouns formed from verbs, adjectives, other nouns

1. Some nouns have the smae form as verbs: act, attempt, blame, book, call, copy, cost, dance, fall, fear, help, joke, kiss, laugh, try, vote, walk, wash, wish.

2. Typical endings which make nouns from:
• verbs: acceptance, agreement, arrival, behaviour,
discovery, knowledge, possession.
• adjectives: absence, activity, anxiety, constancy, happpiness.
• other nouns: boyhood, kingdom, lunacy, mouthful, sexism.

And note –ing forms used as nouns: I’ve given your shirt an ironing.

C. Nouns and verbs with the same spelling but different stress:

1. With some words, when the stress is on the first syllable, the word is a noun. When the stress is on second syllable, it is a verb. The meanings are related:
Noun: We have finished book 1. We have made good progress.
Verb: We are now ready to progress Book 2.

2. The meanings can also be quite different:
Noun: My sons’s conduct at school hasn’t been very good.
Verb: Mahler used to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic.


1.1 Compound Nouns

A. Nouns formed with gerund (‘-ing) + noun: ‘dancing-shoes’
1. When a noun has two or more parts (e.g.classroom), we call it a compound noun.

2. The –ing form can be sometimes be an adjective:
Can you see that’dancing’couple? (=couple that is dancing)
When the –ing form is an adjective, we stress both words and never use a hypen.

1. The –ing form can be the first part of a compound noun:
I need a pair of ‘dancing-shoes. (=shoes used for dancing; not ‘shoes that are dancing’)
When the –ing form is a noun, we stress the first word only and a hypen is optional.

B. Apostrophe s (‘s) or compound noun?

1. We use apostrophe s(‘s) with people and some living things to show possession: Gus’s car. The girl’s shoes, a dog’s bark.

2. When we want to show possession with things, we can use of: the leg of the table. However, we often prefer to use a compound noun instead of of: the table-leg.

3. We can say the voice of a man or a man’s voice. (Not ‘a man voice’)
We can say the leg of a tbale or table-leg. (Not ‘a table’s leg’)

C. Compound nouns which tell us about materials and substances

1. Names of materials and substances (leather, gold) are like adjectives when we use them to form compound nouns: a gold watch. (Not ‘golden’).

2. Two important exceptions are wood and wool, which have adjective forms:
a table made of wood- a wooden table; a dress made of wool – a woollen dress.

3. There are adjectival forms for words like gold: glass/glassy, gold/golden, leather/leathery, silver/silvery, silk/silky/silken, steel, steely, stone/stony.
We use them to mean ‘like’: a golden sunset (=a sunset like gold).

1.2 Countable and uncountable nouns

1. If a noun is countable:

a we can use a/an in front of it: I bought a book. (Not ‘I brought book’).
b it has a plural and can be used in questions with How many?: How many books..?
c we can use a number in front of it: one book, two books.

2. If a noun is uncountable:

a we do not normally use a/an in front of it: I bought some bread. (Not ‘a bread’)
b it does not normally have a plural and can be used in questions with How much?. How much bread...? (Not ‘How many breads?)
c we cannot normally use a number in front of it. [compare >B below]

3. We need to now whether nouns are countable or uncountable in English to be able to use a/an, some, any, much, many, a few, a little, etc. correctly.
Compare: it was a marvellous experience. (countable=something that happened)
We need someone with experience. (uncountable=skill and knowledge).

A. Nouns which can be either countable or uncountable ‘an egg/egg’

1. Some nouns are countable when they refer to single items, but they are uncountable when they refer to substances:
Countable (a single item) uncountable(substance/material)
He ate a whole chiken! Would you like some chicken?
I had a boiled egg for breakfast. There’s egg on your tie.

2. Some nouns are uncountable when they refer to a material, but they are countable when they refer to an object made from that material:
Countable (‘thing’) uncountable(‘material’)
I broke a glass this morning Glass is made from sand and lime.
I picked up a stone. We used stone to build our walls.

B. Normally uncountable nouns used a countables (1): ‘a coffee/(some) coffee’
1. Words fr drinks like coffee are normally uncountable. This means:
- we use no article: coffee is important to the economy in Brazil.
- or we use some/any. Is there any coffee? I’d like some coffee, please.

C. Normally uncountable nouns used as countables (2): ‘oil/a light oil’

Words like oil and plastic for substances and materials are normally uncountable
Oil is produced in the North Sea.
We often use a/an with nouns like this when we are describing them with an adjective:
The North Sea produces a light oil which is highly prized in the oil industry.

D. Countable and uncountable nouns (2)

1. Singular equivalents of uncoutable nouns: ‘bread/a loaf’

A word like bread is uncountable. If we want ‘one item’, we use a different word: I’d like some bread, please – I’d like a loaf (of bread) please.

Sometimes we have to say exacly what we want. We cannot say ‘a clothing’, so we ask for a coat, a shirt, etc. In the same way, we cannot say ‘a luggage’, ‘ an accommodation’. We have to say what we want: e.g. ia suitcase, a room.

E. Nouns not normally countable in English; ‘information’

1. A number of nouns, like information, are countable in many languages, but they are uncountable in English. This means we cannot:
- use a/an in front of them: I’d like some information, please. (Not ‘an information’).
- give them a plural: I’d like some information, please (Not ‘(some) informations’)

Other examples: advice, clothing, flu, furniture, hair, homework, housework, jewellery, lightning, luggage, meat, money, news, permission, progress, rubbish, scenery, shopping, soap, spaghetti, thunder, toast, traffic, weather.

2. News is plural in form, but takes a singular verb: The news is bad. (Not ‘my hairs are’) Hair (that grows on the head) is singular: My hair is long. (Not ‘my hairs are’). We use hairs only for individual strands of hair. There are three hairs on my nose.

Thanks for visiting my blog