What is Noun? Usage of Noun Where is it used and how?

What is Noun?

A word used to name a place, thing, animal or person is known as a Noun.
For Example- Humayun’s Tomb, Glass, crocodile, Sarita etc.

Noun and its usage elsewhere

The noun is the naming word of profession, name, place, thing, job title or quality etc.
For Example- (1) Our teacher is very kind.
(2) Poverty is a curse.
(3) Honesty is the best policy.
In the above examples teacher, poverty and honesty are nouns as they are the name of a designation (teacher) and feeling (honesty).

Where is it used and how?

• Many nouns are used after determiners such as- ‘a’, ‘this’ and ‘the’.
  Example- (1) A boy was crying in the market.
                 (2) The Taj Mahal is in Delhi.
                 (3) The building is new.
  (4) This ceiling is worth a million rupees.

• Compound noun
  Often, a noun, with another noun, forms a compound noun or a noun phrase.
  Example- (1) An armchair (arm+chair, compound noun)
  (2) A raincoat (rain+coat, compound noun)
  (3) The man next door (noun phrase)
  (4) The corner shop ( noun phrase)
• Noun and noun phrase answer the questions starting with ‘who’ or ‘what’.
  (1) Who broke the cup?
  – Radha (noun)
  (2) Who called me?
  – The boy sitting next to me (noun phrase)

Noun Clause

The noun which represents indefinite words in place of a name, place and things is called a noun clause.
Noun clause consists of words like- What, whatever, which, whichever, who, whoever, whom, whomever etc.

Examples of noun clauses-
(1) Whoever is behind the curtain is the thief.

Here, in the above sentence, whoever is used as noun clause as there is no definite noun given but at its place, an indefinite word is given but it acts like a noun.

Note: Noun clause doesn’t comprise of a single word. It may be a group of several words.

For Example: The target of our work is how we can sell more products in this exhibition.

The above example shows how we can sell more products in this exhibition is a noun clause. The clause act as a predicate nominates in the sentence.

• A Noun Clause also contains a subject and the verb phrase.

For example- Do you know what the weather will be?
Here, what the weather will be is treated as a noun clause. It contains subject to weather and the verb phrase will be. 

Noun and its Kinds

Noun can be classified into five categories-

• Common Noun
• Collective Noun
• Proper Noun
• Abstract Noun
• Material Noun

To have the better understanding of each category, we need to ponder upon each type, individually. Let’s have a look.

A. Common Noun- It is a common name given to a particular class or same kind.

• Girls play hockey.
• A teacher loves her students. 

B. Collective Noun- A collective noun is the name of a group of similar persons or things, taken together and described as a whole. 

• Our team worked hard.
• The audience cheered and clapped. 

C. Proper Noun- A proper noun is the name of a particular person, place or thing.

• Sunidhi is the best student in the class. 
• The Ganga a the holy river.

Note- Its first letter is always written in a capital letter.

D. Abstract Noun- An abstract noun is the name of a feeling, quality, state or concept of a person or a  thing. It cannot be seen or touched but it is a feeling that can only be felt.

• Honesty is the noblest quality of a man.
• He was praised for his bravery. 

E. Material Noun- A material noun is the name of material or substance of which things are being made of.

• The chair is made of wood.
• Milk pudding is made with milk and rice. 

Relevant exercise-
Say whether the italicised nouns are common, proper, collective, abstract or material.

1. Necessity is the mother of invention.
2. Birbal was famous for his wisdom.
3. Many of the children has passed the written test.
4. I presented myself before the head teacher for assignment to a class. 
5. A wealthy man entered the room.
6. Kindness is better than riches.
7. His sense of humor is just unmatchable.
8. Sharma family has been living here for ten years.
9. The truck full of sand fell in the rift.
10. Harry Potter was a highly unusual to actually work out.
11. Our team won the championship.
12. A bunch of keys is on the table.

Answers:

1. Abstract Noun
2. Proper Noun
3. Common Noun
4. Common Noun
5. Abstract Noun
6. Abstract Noun
7. Abstract Noun
8. Proper Noun
9. Material Noun
10. Proper Noun
11. Common Noun
12. Collective Noun

Hope this help! Stay tuned for further lessons. 🙂