Adjective

adjective (noun): a part-of-speech that modifies or describes a noun or a pronoun

An adjective is one of the eight parts of speech.

An adjective is a word that tells us more about a noun. It "describes" or "modifies" a noun (The big dog was hungry). In these examples, the adjective is in bold and the noun that it modifies is in italics.

Pronouns

Pronouns are small words that take the place of a noun. Pronouns are words like: he, you, ours, themselves, some, each... We can use a pronoun instead of a noun. If we didn't have pronouns, we would have to repeat a whole lot of nouns. 

What is Pronoun?

Pronouns are small words that take the place of a noun. We can use a pronoun instead of a noun. Pronouns are words like: he, you, ours, themselves, some, each... If we didn't have pronouns, we would have to repeat a lot of nouns. We would have to say things like:

• Do you like the manager? I don't like the manager. The manager's not friendly.

With pronouns, we can say:

• Do you like the manager? I don't like him. He's not friendly.

A pronoun is a small word with a big job. In fact, a pronoun can take the place of an entire noun phrase. In this way, pronouns help us use fewer words and avoid repetition.

A pronoun represents the person or thing that we are talking about (as long as we know which person or thing we are talking about). We don't usually start a discourse with a pronoun. We start with a noun and then move on to use a pronoun to avoid repeating the noun.

By "noun", we really mean: noun (food), name (Tara), gerund (swimming), noun phrase (twelve red roses). We can replace even a long noun phrase such as "the car that we saw crashing into the bus" with the simple pronoun "it".

Pronoun Rules

Rule 1. Subject pronouns are used when the pronoun is the subject of the sentence. You can remember subject pronouns easily by filling in the blank subject space for a simple sentence.

Example: ___ did the job.

I, he, she, we, they, who, whoever, etc., all qualify and are, therefore, subject pronouns.

Rule 2. Subject pronouns are also used if they rename the subject. They will follow to be verbs, such as is, are, was, were, am, will be, had been, etc.

Examples:

It is he.

This is she speaking.

It is we who are responsible for the decision to downsize.

Rule 3. This rule surprises even language watchers: when who refers to a personal pronoun (I, you, he, she, we, they), it takes the verb that agrees with that pronoun.

Correct: It is I who am sorry. (I am)

Incorrect: It is I who is sorry.

Correct: It is you who are mistaken. (you are)

Incorrect: It is you who's mistaken.

Rule 4. In addition to subject pronouns, there are also object pronouns, known more specifically as direct object, indirect object, and object of a preposition. Object pronouns include me, him, herself, us, them, themselves.

Examples:

Jean saw him.

Him is the direct object of the verb saw.

Give her the book.

The direct object of give is book, and her is the indirect object. Indirect objects always have an implied to or for in front of them: Give [to] her the book. Do [for] me a favor.

Are you talking to me?

Me is the object of the preposition to.

Rule 5. The pronouns who, that, and which become singular or plural depending on the subject. If the subject is singular, use a singular verb. If it is plural, use a plural verb.

Example: He is the only one of those men who is always on time.

The word who refers to one. Therefore, use the singular verb is.

Sometimes we must look more closely to find a verb's true subject:

Example: He is one of those men who are always on time.

The word who refers to men. Therefore, use the plural verb are.

In sentences like this last example, many would mistakenly insist that one is the subject, requiring is always on time. But look at it this way: Of those men who are always on time, he is one.

Pronoun Case

Pronouns (and nouns) in English display "case" according to their function in the sentence. Their function can be:

subjective (they act as the subject)

objective (they act as the object)

possessive (they show possession of something else)

Types of Noun

Types of Nouns

Nouns are an important part of speech in English, probably second only to verbs. It is difficult to say much without using a noun.

There are several different types of English nouns. It is often useful to recognize what type a noun is because different types sometimes have different rules. This helps you to use them correctly.

Common Nouns and Proper Nouns

Common Nouns

Most nouns are common nouns. Common nouns refer to people, places and things in general like chair or dog. Any noun that is not a name is a common noun.

Examples: teacher, car, music, danger, receipt

• Have you seen my dog?
• The books are on your desk.
• ...the pursuit of happiness.

Proper Nouns

Names of people, places or organizations are proper nouns. Your name is a proper noun. London is a proper noun. United Nations is a proper noun.

Rule: Proper nouns always start with a capital letter.

Examples: Jane, Thailand, Sunday, James Bond, Einstein, Superman, Game of Thrones, Shakespeare

• Let me introduce you to Shayan.
• The capital of Pakistan is Islamabad.
• He is the chairman of the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation.
• I was born in August.

Note: Adjectives that we make from proper nouns also usually start with a capital letter, for example Shakespearian, Orwellian.

Concrete Nouns and Abstract Nouns

Concrete Nouns

Concrete nouns are physical things that you can touch.

Examples: man, rice, head, car, furniture, mobile phone

• How many stars are there in the universe?
• Have you met James Bond?
• Pour the water down the drain.

Abstract Nouns

Abstract nouns are the opposite of concrete nouns. They are things that you cannot touch. Abstract nouns are ideas, concepts and feelings.

Examples: happiness, courage, danger, truth

• He has great strength.
• Who killed President Kennedy is a real mystery.
• Sometimes it takes courage to tell the truth.
• Their lives were full of sadness.

Countable Nouns and Uncountable Nouns

Countable Nouns

(also called count nouns)

You can count countable nouns. Countable nouns have singular and plural forms.

Examples:  ball, boy, cat, person

• I have only five dollars.
• The Earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago.
• There are lots of people but we don't have a car.

Uncountable Nouns

(also called mass nouns)

You cannot count uncountable nouns. You need to use "measure words" to quantify them.

Rule: We never use uncountable nouns with the indefinite article (a/an). Uncountable nouns are always singular.

Examples: water, happiness, cheese

• Have you got some money?
• Air-conditioners use a lot of electricity.
• Do you have any work for me to do?
• Many Asians eat rice.

Collective Nouns

A collective noun denotes a group of individuals.

Examples: class (group of students), pride (group of lions), crew (group of sailors)

Rule: Collective nouns can be treated as singular or plural. More about this at rules of subject-verb agreement with collective nouns.

• His family live in different countries.
• An average family consists of four people.
• The new company is the result of a merger.
• The board of directors will meet tomorrow.

Compound Nouns

A compound noun is a noun that is made with two or more words. Most compound nouns are [noun + noun] or [adjective + noun]. Each compound noun acts as a single unit and can be modified by adjectives and other nouns.

Compound nouns have three different forms:

• open or spaced - space between words (bus stop)
• hyphenated - hyphen between words (mother-in-law)
• closed or solid - no space or hyphen between words (football)

Examples: cat food, blackboard, breakfast, full moon, washing machine, software

• Can we use the swimming pool?
• They stop work at sunset.
• Don't forget that check-out is at 12 noon.

What is a Noun?

What is a Noun?

noun (noun): a word (except a pronoun) that identifies a person, place or thing, or names one of them (proper noun)

The simple definition is: a person, place or thing. Here are some examples:

• person: man, woman, teacher, John, Mary
• place: home, office, town, countryside, America
• thing: table, car, banana, money, music, love, dog, monkey

The problem with the simple definition above is that it does not explain why "love" is a noun but can also be a verb.

Another (more complicated) way of recognizing a noun is by its:

• ending
• position
• function

1. Noun ending

There are certain word endings that show that a word is a noun, for example:

• -ity → nationality
• -ment → appointment
• -ness → happiness
• -ation → relation
• -hood → childhood

But this is not true for the word endings of all nouns. For example, the noun "spoonful" ends in -ful, but the adjective "careful" also ends in -ful.

2. Position in sentence

We can often recognise a noun by its position in the sentence.

Nouns often come after a determiner (a determiner is a word like a, an, the, this, my, such):

• a relief
• an afternoon
• the doctor
• this word
• my house
• such stupidity

Nouns often come after one or more adjectives:

• a great relief
• a peaceful afternoon
• the tall, Pakistani doctor
• this difficult word
• my brown and white house
• such crass stupidity

3. Function in a sentence

Nouns have certain functions (jobs) in a sentence, for example:

subject of verb: Doctors work hard.

object of verb: He likes coffee.

subject and object of verb: Teachers teach students.

But the subject or object of a sentence is not always a noun. It could be a pronoun or a phrase. In the sentence "My doctor works hard", the noun is "doctor" but the subject is "My doctor".