Nouns

Common Nouns and Proper Nouns

A common noun refers to a general class of person, place, or thing. A proper noun is a name of a particular person, place, or thing. COMMON NOUN PROPER NOUN Boy George School Larsen School store Macy's road Saviers Road Capitalize the proper nouns in the following sentences. Example: I work at oxnard college. Oxnard College 1. Next tuesday we will go to pizza hut.

Nouns

A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea. Whatever exists, we assume, can be named, and that name is a noun. A proper noun, which names a specific person, place, or thing. Common nouns name everything else, things that usually are not capitalized. John Smith wrote stories. Jim lives in Oxnard. My job brings satisfaction. People like determination. Persons Places Things player Oxnard spoon Jose beach socks

THE SENTENCE

A sentence is a group of words containing a subject and predicate (defined below). Sometimes, the subject is "understood," as in a command: "[You] go do your homework." That probably means that the shortest possible complete sentence is something like "Go!" A sentence ought to express a thought that can stand by itself. A sentence must have a subject and a predicate. A subject tells whom or what the sentence is about. The predicate tells something about the subject. Subject Predicate (Who/What) (What is said about the subject) Maria danced. The boy cries.

Subjects and Verbs

A verb must agree with its subject in number. The number of a word refers to whether it is singular or plural. The boys (plural) were dancing in the street. She (singular) has a knife. Subject/Verb Agreement As a rule a subject and a verb agrees with its subject in person and number. Example: A box of donuts is on the table.

Words ending in "ing"

A word ending in "ING" is not what it appears to be. The gerund is a verbal noun ending in "ing." The gerund may, like any verb, take an object and it may be modified by an adjective or adverb. Example: Running is good exercise for your heart. (Subject) Maria enjoys reading romance novels. (Object) A past participle is a verbal which has some of the properties of a verb and some properties of an adjective. Incorrect Correct He running to the store. He is running to the store.

Finding Nouns

A, AN, and THE often point to nouns. A, AN, and THE are often called articles. The man An offer A businessman Man, offer and businessman are all nouns. The last beautiful woman was from California. The points to the noun woman. The words last and beautiful describe woman. A new car has been purchased. The salesperson called yesterday. Other noun pointers include: A, this, my, one, an, that, your, two, the, these, his, two, those, her, three N.B. Nouns will almost always follow these words: its, our, their

Adjectives

Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence. The Articles — a, an, and the — are adjectives. the tall lady the sad clown

Degrees of Adjectives

Adjectives can express degrees of modification: Gladys is a rich woman, but Josie is richer than Gladys, and Sadie's the richest woman in town. The degrees of comparison are known as the positive, the comparative, and the superlative. We use the comparative for comparing two things and the superlative for comparing three or more things. Notice that the word than frequently accompanies the comparative and the word that precedes the superlative. The suffixes -er and -est form most comparatives and superlatives, although we need -ier and -iest when a two-syllable adjective ends in y (happier and happiest); otherwise we use more and most when an adjective has more than one syllable. Positive Comparative Superlative Rich richer richest Lovely lovelier loveliest Certain adjectives have irregular forms in the comparative and superlative degrees: Irregular Comparative Superlative Forms Good better best Bad worse worst Little less least Much many some

Position of Adjectives

Adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify. Sometimes they appear in a string of adjectives, and when they do, they appear in a set order according to category.

Auxiliary Verbs

An auxiliary verb is a verb that aids or helps another verb express various shades of meaning. List of some auxiliary verbs: do did can could must will be am, is, are, was, were have has, had shall would should may might Example: Sarah is working late tonight. Should I have gone earlier? I haven't eaten red meat in ten years. Present Tense I am they are you are we are he, she, it is Past Tense I was they were you were we were he, she, it was

PLURAL NOUNS

Definition: A plural noun denotes more than one person, place, thing, or idea: cows, tables, books. Here are a few rules for forming the plurals of nouns: 1. The plural of most nouns is done by adding "s" to the singular: cat - cats, tube - tubes, rat - rats, snake - snakes, ski - skis 2. When the noun ends in s, sh, ch, x, or z, add es. box - boxes, bus - buses, brush - brushes witch - witches, gas - gases, kiss - kisses, Jones - Joneses 3. When the singular noun ends in y preceded by a consonant, change the y to i and add es : baby - babies, gallery - galleries, hobby - hobbies. 4. Form the plural of some nouns ending in f or fe by changing f or fe to v and adding es : wife - wives, half - halves, knife - knives. (NOT dwarf - dwarfs roof - roofs) 5. Some nouns have no change: moose, deer, sheep, tuna. 6. Some nouns form the plural in an irregular way: man - men, woman - women, foot - feet, mouse - mice, child - children, person - people, goose - geese Underline the noun in each sentence and write the plural of each noun. Example: The bridge collapsed during the earthquake. bridges earthquakes 1. The lady plays the trumpet._______________________________________ 2. The deer ran over the hill.______________________________________

Common Linking Verbs

Linking verb: A linking verb is a verb that does not show action but connects the subject with a word in the predicate. taste grow feel appear remain smell become stay sound seem Example: The lady is a singer. (Singer is linked to the lady.) Jim appears to be lonely. (Lonely describes Jim.)

Categories of Nouns

Nouns can be classified further as count nouns, which name anything that can be counted (four boys, three countries, a few towels, a dozen roses); mass nouns (or non-count nouns), which name something that can't be counted (water, air, energy, blood); and collective nouns, which can take a singular form but are composed of more than one individual person or items (group, team, class, committee, herd). Some words can be either a count noun or a non-count noun depending on how they're being used in a sentence: a. weather (non-count) b. rainstorms (countable) c. happiness (non-count d. smiles (countable)

Forms of Nouns

Nouns can be in the subjective, possessive, and objective case. The word case defines the role of the noun in the sentence. Is it a subject, an object, or does it show possession? The young lady [subject] is tall. He chose the young lady [object]. The young lady's [possessive] hat is blue.

A Linking Verb

Some verbs do not express mental or physical action. They help make a statement by connecting the subject with a word in the predicate that describes or explains it. These verbs are called linking verbs. The most common linking verb is be. Listed below are some forms of the verb be: Am is are was were has been have been had been Example: Aunt Adeline is friendly. Tom and Maria are beautiful.

Singular Subjects

Special singular subjects Each anyone Either anybody Neither everyone Someone everybody is Somebody no one One nobody The word that follows "of the" is not the subject of any of the above sentence.

Possessive Nouns

To form the possessive: To form the possessive singular of a noun, use an apostrophe and "S" after the word. The man's hat The girl's sweater It is correct to use the apostrophe alone or 's in forming the possessive singular of a proper noun ending in s: In Jesus' name Chris's book Examples: Mary ______________ Mother _______________ Cashier ____________ Uncle ________________ Form the possessive of a plural noun that ends in "S" by adding the apostrophe only. Examples: girls ______________ boys _______________ A plural noun that does not end in "S": To form the possessive of a plural noun not ending in S, add an apostrophe and S. Examples: Women _________ Men ___________

VERBS

Verb: A verb is a word that expresses action, being, or state of being. Example: The boy ran down the street. Tom washed the car. An Action Verb: The easiest kind of verb to recognize is one that expresses physical or mental action. Verbs like walk, speak, write, drive, hope, believe, understand, approve are action verbs. Example: Tom bought a new car. Maria studied English at Oxnard College.

Capitalizing Proper Adjectives

When an adjective owes its origins to a proper noun, it should probably be capitalized. Thus we write about Christian music, French fries, the English Parliament, the Ming Dynasty, Jeffersonian democracy. Some periods of time have taken on the status of proper adjectives: the Nixon era. Directional and seasonal adjectives are not capitalized unless they're part of a title: We took the northwest route during the spring thaw. We stayed there until the town's annual Fall Festival of Small Appliances. Find the adjectives in the following sentences. 1. English classes are taught at the new college. 2. Two of my nieces are basketball players. 3. The man drives a new car.