Types of noun

There are different types of noun.

  • Proper Noun
  • Common Noun
  • Material Noun
  • Collective Noun
  • Abstract Noun
  • Countable Noun
  • Uncountable Noun

Proper Noun

A proper noun is a noun representing the name of a particular person, place or thing.

Name of Person : Tuhin ,John, Zing, Rahim , Sahin, etc

Name of things : Titanic , January, Sunday, Quran , Gita , Moon  etc

Name of place : Dhaka , London, America , Kolkata etc.

Characteristics of proper noun:

  • Proper nouns are not normally preceded by an article or modifier (such as any or some),
  • Proper noun denotes a particular person, place, or object
  • Proper nouns are initially capitalized.

NB: Unique objects like Earth, Moon , Sun etc are preceded by article ‘the’ and are considered as singular noun.

Common Noun

Common noun is the general names of a class of persons, places or things or ideas. It is common to each member of class of persons or things.

Examples:

People:- man, girl, boy, mother, father, child, person, teacher, student.

Animals:- cat, dog, fish, ant, snake.

Places:- school, city, building, shop.

Things:- book, table, chair, phone.

Ideas:- love, hate, idea, pride.

Characteristics of common noun:

  • Common nouns are represented in the singular and plural form.
  • Common nouns are represented by lower case letters.
  • Common noun can be preceded by the definite article (the)

Difference between Proper noun & Common noun

A common noun is the name of general person, place or things and groups. like cow, rice, mountain, road, people, horse, phone.

.Examples: I went to the city.

The man was kind.

A proper noun is the name of a specific person, ,thing or place .

Always capitalize the first letter of a proper noun.

Examples: I went to San Francisco. Mr. Brown was kind .

If there is an article before a proper noun, then it is a common noun.

  1. Everybody loves his mother.
  2. She will be a mother
  3. What an affection of you, Mother!

Here in the first and second sentences, the word “mother” is a common noun. In the third sentence, the word “mother” is a proper noun.

Collective noun :

A collective noun refers to a collection or group of objects taken as a whole where objects can be people, animals, emotions, inanimate things or concepts.

It is, in fact, a “collection” of similar things, entities that can be grouped together based on similar/identical characteristics.

Characteristics of collective noun:

  • If a collective noun is used as a subject of a sentence then it takes singular verbs.
  • If a collective noun is divided into separate person or thing then it takes plural verb.

  • A flock of birds is flying.
  •  A team of players goes.                         But; The class are divided into two division. 
  • A band of robbers has come here.

Material noun :

A material noun is a name of word which indicates a matter or substance as a mass and does not indicate any part or number of it. 

  • Material noun takes singular verb

Example : Water is essential to life.  Gold is a precious metal . Salt has a particular taste.

Abstract noun :

An abstract noun is a noun that indicates some abstract idea or quality. They have no physical existence; you can’t see, hear, touch, smell or taste them. But they can only be imagined.

Example : honesty , boyhood , justice , happiness  etc are all abstract nouns.

Generally, article does not come before an abstract noun. But if an abstract noun refers to any quality or idea of a specific person or thing, article ‘the’ is used before them.

Example:

Kindness is a noble virtue. The kindness of Hazarat Muhammed (s) is known to all.






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