The Material Noun
The Material Noun :
What is a noun?
A noun is a word used for naming anything Air, Book, Fish, Feeling, Gold. Hat, Man, Sea, Tea, Tree, Wind, Wood, Yacht, Youth.
A) The noun principally plays these roles.
- The role of subject
- The role of object
- The role of object of a preposition
- The role of noun in apposition
- The role of complement
B) Kinds of Nouns
1) The Proper Noun
A proper noun is a name for one particular person, place, thing or event, as distinct from every other.
Mohammad, Nadya, Egypt, England, Africa, Ahmad, Eyman, The Egyptian revolution... etc.
2) The Common Noun
A common noun is a name which is common to every and any person or thing of the kind.
Animal, Bird, Book, Car, Child, Man, Pen, River, Street, Theatre, Tree, Town.
3) The Material Noun
A material noun is the name of some particular kind of matter.
Copper, Fish, Gold, Iron, Milk, Salt, Water
4) The Collective Noun
A collective noun is the name of a group of persons or things taken as one complete undivided whole.
Army, Audience, Crew, Group, Herd, People, Police, Team... etc.
5) The Abstract Noun
An abstract noun does not denote objects of sense as it is the case with the first four kinds which arc all concrete.
Action, Attention, Beauty, Courage, Death, Fear, Grief, Happiness, Life, Love, Sweetness
C) The Genders of Nouns
There are four genders in English.
1) Masculine Gender for males
Boy, Brother, Cock, Father, Husband, Man, Uncle... etc.
2) Feminine Gender for females
Aunt, Daughter, Girl, Hen, Mother, Sister, Woman, etc.
3) Common Gender for either sex
Bird, Child, Cousin, Enemy, Friend, Parent, Teacher...etc.
4) Neuter Gender for lifeless things
Book, Box, Glass, House, Pen, Stone, Table...etc.
How can you form the feminine from the masculine?
1) By changing the ending
actor = actress
conductor = conductress
host = hostess
tiger = tigress
hero = heroine
author = authoress
director = directress
manager = manageress
waiter = waitress
2) By adding a feminine word instead of the masculine one
boy cousin = girl cousin
grand father = grand mother
manservant = womanscrvant
boy friend = girl friend
he-bear = she-bear
milkman = milkmaid
3) By changing the word
boy = girl
son = daughter
dog = bitch
king = queen
man = woman
sir = lady
D) The Gerund
Nouns can be formed from verbs by adding ING at the end of the verb.
Be = being
Come = coming
Love = loving
Play = playing
Read = reading
Sing = singing
Sleep = sleeping
Work = working
E) Forms of Nouns
There are three forms of nouns.
1. The Simple Noun
2. The Compound Noun
3. The Derivative Noun
1) The Simple Noun
Arm, Board, Ball, Bow, Chair, Fountain, Girl, Knife, Man, Pen, Rail, Rain, School, Snow, Song, Sound, Wind, Wing, etc….
2) The Compound Noun
arm + chair = armchair
black + board = blackboard
forget + me + not - forget-me-not
fountain + pen -tis = fountainpen
merry + go + round = merry-go-round
pen + knife = penknife
rail + way = railway
rail + way + man = railwayman
rain + bow = rainbow
school + girl = schoolgirl
snow + ball = snowball
snow + man = snowman
touch + me + not = touch-me-not
Note : That the first word in a compound noun is the qualifier and if the positions are reversed that may bring about a complete change of meaning.
Coffee-house….house-coffee
eye-glass….glass-eye
flower-garden….garden-flower
lamp-oil….oil-lamp
race-horse….horse-race
school-girl….girl-school
3) The Derivative Noun
to astonish + ment = astonishment
to build + ing = building
child + hood = childhood
todictate + ion = dictation
friend + ship = friendship
generous + ity = generosity
happy + ness = happiness
to sail + or = sailor
strong + th = strength
to write + er = writer
Note : If two vowels are met one at the end the other at the first of a noun one of them must be omitted.
write + er = writer
F) The Countable and Uncountable Nouns
Countable Nouns
one boy
two cats
three chairs
four eggs
Uncountable Nouns
ice
ink
salt
tea
2) The countable nouns have both singular and plural.
A pupil…..pupils
Chair…..chairs
This is a schoolboy.
These are schoolboys.
3) The uncountable nouns have only singular.
Salt is in the box.
Water is in the bottle.
Look! His face radiates happiness
4) But the uncountable nouns can be both countables and uncountables (singular and plural).
uncountables.....countables
ice......an ice
copper.......coppes
glass.......glasses
iron......an iron
tin......a tin
It’s easy to break glass.
I’ve already had three glasses of milk, but I want some more.
G) Partitive Nouns
When a noun refers to a part of something, it is called partitive noun.
A great number of people
A group of people
A handful of dust
A number of foreign stamp
A pair of shoes
A parcel of books
A piece of cheese
A sheet of paper
The Material Noun :
Idioms Index – Previous Page
