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Kinds and function

A.     There are four kinds of noun in English: Common nouns, dog, man, table Proper nouns,: France, Madrid, Mrs Smith, Tom Abstract nouns: beauty, chanty, courage, fear, joy Collective nouns: crowd, flock, group, swarm, team

B.     A noun can function as:

The subject of a verb: Tom arrived

The complement of the verbs be, become, seem: Tom is an actor.

The object of a verb- / saw Tom

The object of a preposition: / spoke to Tom.

A noun can also be in the possessive case: Tom’s books.

11.     Gender

A.     Masculine: men, boys and male animals (pronoun he/they). Feminine’ women, girls and female animals (pronoun she/they)

Neuter: inanimate things, animals whose sex we don’t know and sometimes babies whose sex we don’t know (pronoun it/they) Exceptions’ ships and sometimes cars and other vehicles when regarded with affection or respect are considered feminine. Countries when referred to by name are also normally considered feminine The ship struck an iceberg, which tore a huge hole in her side Scotland lost many of her bravest men in two great rebellions

B.     Masculine/feminine nouns denoting people

1.     Different forms.

(a) boy, girl                      gentleman, lady        son, daughter bachelor, spinster        husband, wife            uncle, aunt bridegroom, bride        man, woman             widower, widow father, mother             nephew, niece

With exceptions:

baby                            infant                       relative

child                           parent                       spouse

cousin                         relation                     teenager

(b) duke, duchess              king, queen               prince, princess earl, countess              lord, lady

2 The majority of nouns indicating occupation have the same form

artist             cook            driver         guide

assistant       dancer        doctor etc

With exceptions:

actor, actress                        host, hostess

conductor, conductress          manager, manageress

heir, heiress                         steward, stewardess

hero, heroine                        waiter, waitress

Also salesman, saleswoman etc , but sometimes -person is used instead of -man, -woman’ salesperson, spokesperson.

C.     Domestic animals and many of the larger wild animals have different

forms:

bull, cow         duck, drake          ram, ewe       stallion, mare

cock, hen        gander, goose       stag, doe        tiger, tigress dog, bitch        lion, lioness

Others have the same form