| 1 Kinds of Nouns |
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There are four kinds of nouns:
Common Nouns Common nouns are names of people (man, aunt); things (book, car); animals (monkey, armadillo); and places (church, beach).
Proper Nouns Proper nouns are names of people (George Bush, Obama); things (Financial Times, Eiffel Tower); animals (King Kong, Lassie); and places (London, Central Park). A proper noun begins with a capital letter. Proper nouns also refer to times or to dates in the calender: Saturday, April. We can use plurals for nouns in exceptional cases: There are three Johns in my class. We can also use 'the, an, a' for a proper noun in special circumstances: It is no longer the London I used to know.
Abstract Nouns An abstract noun is a quality or something that we can only think of rather than as something that we can see or touch, e.g. beauty, friendship. We can form abstract nouns from common nouns (child – childhood); from verbs (know – knowledge); and from adjectives (happy – happiness). (LIST 15 contains abstract nouns formed from common nouns, verbs and adjectives.)
Collective Nouns A collective noun is a name we use for a number of people, animals or things which we group together and speak of as a whole. For example: a bunch of bananas, a litter of puppies. (A list of collective nouns can be found on LIST 5).
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