Sentence Structure: Categories

Noun

For the purposes of identification, it is best to start with a very traditional definition of what a
noun is: a noun is the name of a person, place, or thing. There are problems with this traditional
definition. For example, ‘thing’ has to be interpreted very broadly, to include substances like
butter and foam (since butter and foam are nouns), abstract concepts like honesty and
multiplication (since honesty and multiplication are nouns), collections of things like federations,
crowds, and cutlery, and phenomena like gravity and time (for the same reason). Suspicions,
accidents, refusals, and facts aren’t obviously things, yet suspicion, accident, refusal, and fact are
all nouns. On the other hand, while behind and ahead might be said to stand for places, they are
not normally taken to be nouns. Nevertheless the definition is useful as a starting point. Here are

some further examples of nouns:

January, Frankenstein, Bugsy, Jessica, Java, Portsmouth, gorilla, university, jam, theory,
inspector, nationalisation, gremlin, joke, tactic, gallon, furniture, year, couple.

You might ask why I insist that suspicion, honesty, and January are nouns when suspicions,
honesty, and January are not strictly either people, places, or things. In answer to this, you need
to recall what the point of categorizing words was in the first place. By assigning a word to a
particular category, we make a general statement about its distribution – i.e. about its possible
syntactic positions and functions. Honesty, suspicions, and January are nouns because they
occupy the same range of positions and have the same range of functions – i.e. have the same
distribution – as other words that obviously are nouns by the traditional definition. In the final
analysis, then, it is distribution that decides the matter. So I’ll supplement the traditional account
of nouns with some distributional clues to their identification.

In addition, every category of words has its own range of possible word forms (its morphological
possibilities). Nouns are no exception. This too can be useful in identifying nouns. One
morphological identifying feature of all nouns is that they have a genitive (or possessive) form.
For example, Bill’s (as in Bill’s pancakes or those are Bill’s), mud’s (as in the mud’s
consistency), and joke’s (as in the joke’s punch line).
Other features are shared by some nouns and not by others. In other words, there are several sub-
categories of the noun category. I’ll mention four subcategories of noun: proper vs. common
and count vs. mass. proper nouns are names, spelt with an initial capital.

Examples from the above list are: January, Frankenstein, Bugsy, Jessica, Java, Portsmouth.
These generally constitute Noun Phrases in their own right.

All other nouns are common nouns. What follows normally applies only to common nouns. All
common nouns can combine with the (the definite article) to form a Noun Phrase (e.g. the
accident, the mud, the cutlery). In any two-word phrase (w1 + w2) of the form [the + w2], w2
will always be a Noun (N).

In addition, common nouns that refer to things that can be counted – count nouns –

(a) can combine with a/an (the indefinite article) to form a Noun Phrase (e.g. a stream, an
accident). In phrases of the form [a/an + w], w will always be a Noun.

(b) can combine with numerals (one, two, three . . . ) to form a Noun Phrase, and with
expressions like several, many, etc..

(c) can be marked for plural. The regular marking for plural is the suffix -s (singular nouns lack
this suffix). But there are several irregular plural markers:

singular plural

accident, accidents,

man, foot, analysis, sheep. men, feet, analyses, sheep

mass nouns refer to ‘things’ that cannot be counted (so they are sometimes called non-count
nouns). Examples are butter, foam, cutlery, furniture, honesty, grace. Mass nouns don’t normally
display any of the above possibilities. They cannot normally appear in a plural form (*foams,
*butters, *honesties). Nor can they normally follow a/an (*a foam, *a butter, *a furniture),
numerals or similar expressions (*one foam, *nine furnitures). But they follow some (some
foam, some furniture). In a two-word phrase of the form [some + w], w will be a noun. Also,
they combine with the.
The above remarks have been qualified by ‘normally’ because it is often possible to turn a mass
noun into a count noun precisely by modifying it with a/an, or a numeral, and/or giving it a plural
form. This usually involves a change of meaning: a mud, two butters (a kind of mud, two kinds
of butter); a beer, three beers (a kind of beer, or a drink of beer). (See also with an honesty that
surprised me.) Many nouns are both mass and count. For example, theory can stand alone or with
some (cf. we need to do some theory) as a mass noun, but it can also be preceded by a and by
numerals and be plural as a count noun (a theory, theories, three theories). Other examples are
suspicion, egg, cake, and charity.Proper nouns, because they anyway stand for single,
identifiable individuals, do not normally have any modifiers at all or appear in a plural form.
However, in special circumstances, even they can be modified by the or a and appear in a plural
form: the Ewings (= the Ewing family), the Henman of Wimbledon fame, the Einsteins of this
world, a pensive Holmes. Here they are treated as if they were common nouns.

Now identify all the nouns in the following passage.

As Max and Adrian were talking, the daylight was fading from the West. Clouds were gathering
and there was a chill in the air. They decided to end their conversation. Lights were shining from
a passing steamer. Pessimistic thoughts filled the minds of both men, but Adrian pushed them
aside as being merely the result of his tiredness. Besides, he had sand in his shoes.

The nouns are: Max, Adrian, daylight, West, clouds, chill, air, conversation, lights,
steamer, thoughts, minds, men, Adrian, result, tiredness, sand, shoes.

If we include they, them, and he on the grounds that they stood for persons and things, that’s
reasonable. They are pronouns. pronouns are used to stand in place of complete Noun Phrases
(NPs). In the above passage, they stands for Max and Adrian, them stands for pessimistic
thoughts, and he for Adrian. Substituting single words like these is an important test for whether
a sequence of words constitutes a phrase or not. In substituting a pronoun, we test more
specifically whether the phrase is an NP.

Here are some further examples of pronouns:

definite pronouns: she/her, it, I/me, we/us, you, they/them

reflexive (definite) pronouns: myself, itself, ourselves, etc.

indefinite pronouns: something, someone, anything, anyone

demonstrative pronouns: this, that, these, those

interrogative (question) pronouns: who, which, what

possessive pronouns: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs.