University of Sarajevo Faculty of Political Sciences Sarajevo ESPS English 1 Instructor: Vedad Lihovac, (English)

Unit 2 - Nouns
A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea. Proper Nouns - Proper Noun is the name of a particular person or place. Proper nouns always begin with a capital letter. Examples : Mark, London, India Common Nouns - Common Noun is a name given in common to every person or thing of the group. Common nouns begin with a capital letter only if it is the first word of the sentence. Examples : Girl, Boy, City, Tiger Collective Nouns - Collective Nouns are those nouns that denote a group of people, animals, objects, concepts or ideas as a single entity. Examples : Army of Soldiers, Class of Students, Crew of Sailors, Band of Musicians Abstract Nouns - Abstract Noun is the name of a quality, action or state. You cannot see, hear, smell or taste an abstract noun. Examples : Kindness, Loyalty, Childhood, Sickness, Laughter Count nouns name anything that can be counted (e.g. four books, two continents, a few dishes, a dozen buildings). Non-count nouns (or mass nouns) name something that can't be counted (water, air, energy, blood) Nouns can be in the subjective, possessive, and objective case. The word case defines the role of the noun in the sentence. English derives in some ways from Anglo-Saxon and one of the things the language has is a special form of genitive case, the way that we show that something belongs to something else. Examples are "the teacher's table", "the boy's book", "the lady's lamp", "the dog's dinner" and these all have an apostrophe in them Plurals are formed by adding -s, except in the following cases: When a word ends in -ch, -s, -sh, -ss or -x the plural is formed by adding -es, eg.: benches, gases, dishes, crosses, taxes When a word ends in -y preceded by a consonant the plural form is -ies, eg.: parties, bodies, policies When a word ends in -y preceded by a vowel the plural is formed by adding -s, eg.: trays, joys, keys When a word ends in -o the more common plural ending is -oes, eg.: tomatoes, potatoes, zeroes, heroes In less familiar words or when the final -o preceded by a vowel the plural ending is -os, eg.: avocados, armadillos, studios, cameos
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When a word ends in -f the plural is formed either by adding -s, eg.: beliefs, cuffs, whiffs or by changing the -f to -v and adding -es, eg.: wives, thieves, loves. Some words may take both forms, eg.: scarfs - scarves, wharfs wharves When a word ends in -ex or -ix the more formal plural ending is -ices. In more general contexts -es is used, e.g.: appendices / appendixes, indices / indexes When a word form Latin ends in -is the plural form is -es, e.g.: crises, analyses When a word form Latin ends in -us the plural form is -i, e.g.: nuclei, syllabi, radii With compound words (like court-martial) it is usually the most important part which is pluralized, e.g.: courts-martial, lord-justices, mothers-in-law In certain cases the plural form of a word is the same as the singular, e.g.: deer, sheep, grouse and in some words both forms end in -s, e.g.: measles, corps, mews

There are two main types of plural which take either singular of plural verbs: - words like media and data. These are in common use as singular nouns although, strictly, this is incorrect - words ending in -ics. Generally, these are treated as plural when the word relates to an individual person or thing e.g.: his mathematics are poor, the hall's acoustics are good and as singular when it is regarded more strictly as a science e.g.: mathematics is an important subject.