Noun

What is a Noun ?

Noun is a naming word which is used as the name of a person, place, thing, feeling, action, quality, state.

It’s a word used to identify entities, whether they are tangible ( something you can touch ) like “table” or “dog” or intangible (something you can’t touch but can only feel ) like “happiness” or “love”.

Nouns can be singular (referring to one item) or plural (referring to more than one item).

How to identify a Noun in a given sentence ?

To identify a noun in each sentence we always need to focus on following three question words: Who/What/Whom

Now any word which can answer the questions starting from the above mentioned three words will be considered as a noun.

First Example:
Vikramaditya was a great king.

Now in the above statement we can frame a question that is “who was a great king ? ” and the answer we get Vikramaditya, hence it’s a noun. Also, another question can be framed as ” Who was Vikramaditya ?” and the answer is “king” and hence the word “king” will be the second noun in the same statement.

Second Example:
The man purchased a scooter.

In above statement two questions can be asked,

a) Who purchased a scooter ?
b) What did the man purchase ?
and answers to “who” and “what” are “man” and “scooter” and hence we have two nouns in the given sentence.

How many types of nouns are there?

Based on usage there are five different types of nouns :

1. Proper Noun

  • Proper name – Proper noun is a particular name given to a person, place or thing.
  • Uppercase – The initial letter of a proper noun always starts with a capital letter.
  • Zero article – No article is placed prior to a proper noun.

Example :

  1. Haryana is a state in India
    ( Haryana is the name of a particular state and India is the name of a particular country )
  2. Sita has two brothers
    (Sita is the name of a particular girl)
  3. Mohan was born on Tuesday
    (Mohan is the name of a particular boy and Tuesday is the name of a particular day)

2. Common Noun

  • General name – Common noun is a name that represents a category or a class.
  • Lowercase – The initial letter of a common noun always starts with a small letter ( except in the beginning of a sentence).
  • Article – a/an/the articles can be used prior to a common noun

Example :

  1. Girls walk in the garden
  2. I have a grey umbrella
  3. Mohan has written many novels

3. Material Noun

  • Substance name – Material noun is a name that represents a substance or material

  • Article – No articles are placed in front of a material noun

Example :

  1. Gold is a costly element
  2. Milk is white in color

4. Collective Noun

  • Collective noun is the name given to a group of similar things or to the objects belonging to the same category

Example :

  1. Class
  2. Family
  3. Fleet (a collection of ships or vessels)
  4. Army (a group of soldiers)
  5. Bevy (a collection of girls) ( बैवि)
  6. Herd (a group of cattle) (हर्ड)
  7. Shoal (a collection of fish) (शौल)
  8. Jury (a collection of judges) (जूरी)
  9. Flock (a collection of birds)

Collective nouns can further be divided into two parts:

  • Compact collective nouns:
    These are the nouns which are self-sufficient in their meaning

Crowd – it is easily understood as a group of people and is self-sufficient in their meaning

  • Non-Compact collective nouns:
    These are the nouns which are not self-sufficient in their meaning
    We need to add an adjunct – preposition to explain its meaning and to specify plural

Herd (a group of cattle) – A herd of cattle is drinking water ( herd : non compact collective noun, -of : adjunct preposition )​

5. Abstract Noun

FAQS - Abstract noun is the name given to a Feeling, Action, Quality, State Hatred (Feeling) Movement (Action) Honesty (Quality) Sickness (State) These are nouns formed after adding (affixes – prefix/suffix) to common nouns, verbs and adjectives Happiness - Happy ( adjective ) + ness (suffix) Growth - Grow (verb) + th (suffix) Childhood - Child (common) + hood (suffix)

Present continuous tense exercise with answers :

Following are the present continuous tense sentences with solutions. These sentences also include present continuous tense in hindi language which helps everyone to practice and master this tense.

1. Affirmative sentence :

2. Negative sentence :

3. Interrogative sentence :

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