There are two classes of nouns: proper and common.
- Proper nouns are individual names given to separate persons or things. Proper nouns may be personal names, geographical names, the names of the month and of the days of week, names of hotels etc.
- Common nouns are names that can be given to any individual of a class of persons or things, collections of similar etc. There are different groups of common nouns:
- class nouns - denote persons or thing belonging to a class. They have 2 numbers: singular and plural
- collective nouns - nouns only in the singular( furniture, machinery), nouns which are singular in form but plural in meaning( police), nouns that may be both( family)
- nouns of material - are uncountable and are generally used without article
- abstract nouns - denote some quality, state, action or idea. Abstract nouns can change their meaning and become class nouns
8. The noun: the category of number.
English countable nouns have two numbers - the singular and the plural. The main types of the plural forms of English nouns are as follows:
- the general rule for forming the plural of English nouns is by adding the ending -s(-es) ti the singular
- the plural forms of some nouns are survivals of either formations
- some words borrowed from Latin or Greek keep their Latin or Greek plural forms
- some nouns have only the plural form:
- trousers, spectacles, breeches, scissors, tongs, fetters
- billiards, barracks, works
- politics, physics, phonetics, optics
- news - singular
