Nouns in English

Nouns in the English System

A noun can be defined as a word used to name a person, place, or thing. By a thing here, it means that it comprises something which can be perceived by human senses, or that which cannot be perceived but can be thought of. The system of English nouns, for most of the Indonesian-learners of English, is complicated. According to their kinds, logically English nouns can be classified into 2 kinds, i.e. (1) proper, and (2) common nouns which are divided into (a) abstract, (b) individual, and (c) collective nouns. Based on their grammatical distinction, these common nouns can be made into (1) countable and (2) uncountable nouns. In other words, countable nouns belong to individual and collective nouns, and most uncountable nouns belong to abstract and individual nouns. When they are categorized according to their number, these countable nouns can be divided into (1) singular and (2) plural nouns; when they are categorized according to their gender, they can be divided into (1) masculine, (2) feminine, (3) common, and (4) neuter gender. Noun classification according to the case will be discussed after the topic on the concord between subjects and their verbs is given. For clarification, this system can be diagrammatically drawn as the following.

NOUNS Classified according to kinds grammatical number gender case distinction

1) proper 2) common 1) countable 1) singular 1) masculine 1) nominal 2) uncountable 2) plural 2) feminine 2) accusative 3) common 3) genitive 4) neuter a) abstract b) individual c) collective

A. Kinds

According to their kinds, nouns can be classified into proper and common nouns.

1. A proper noun is, referring to Maurer (2000:105), a name of a particular, individual person, place, or thing who/which is usually unique. It is written is a capital letter.

2. A common noun is, according to Wren and Martin (1990:5), “a name given in common to every person or thing of the same class or kind”. Different from proper nouns, this sort of nouns is not written in a capital letter. The following chart shows how these two categories work in practice.

Proper nouns: Karen, Adam, London, France.

Common nouns: girl, boy, country, university.

When classified into their particular details, common nouns can be divided into 3 classes, i.e. abstract, individual, and collective nouns.

a) An abstract noun, which belongs to uncountable nouns, is a word used to name an idea, activity, action, a quality, or state which is “considered apart from the object to which it belongs” (Wren & Martin, 2000:6), for example of this noun category is kindness, theft, boyhood, and grammar.

b) An individual noun, which belongs to countable nouns, is a word that represents a typical member of a group and may include most f the concrete nouns, i.e. words which can be perceived by human senses. This category can be exemplified by these words: student, lawyer, flower, and plant.

c) A collective noun names a group, number, or collection of persons, objects, or things “taken together and spoken f as one whole” (Whren & Martin, 2000:5), for example, fleet, police, and crowd. Noticed how they are used in the followings. 1) A fleet may mean a number of warships or vessels, under one commander. For example, Admiral Sudomo led the Indonesian combat fleet to attack the Dutch fleet.

2) Police is “men and women belonging to a departememnt of goverment concerned with the keeping f public order: Several hundred police were on duty at the demonstration” (Hornby, 1974:644).

3) A crowd means “a large number of people together, but without order or organization : He pushes his way through the crowd” (Hornby, 1974:206).