A noun is a very popular and
every day part of speech in English. As popular as it is, adolescents between
the age of 5-10 can wake up to tell you the definition. I normally smile when I
see pupils in congregation singing monotonously “A noun is a name of any
person, animal, place or thing.”
The above definition is one
of the easiest ways to define a noun. But as soon as pupils upgrade to a higher
class, teachers also promote the pupils to a new definition which is normally
“A noun is used to name a person, animal, place, or thing
You do not have to be confused
because none of the definitions above is wrong. The only thing that differentiates
them is “presentation.” So, according to
Eduvocabulary
What is a noun?
A noun is a naming word. This is the simplest way we choose to define a noun because it captures every other definition that you might have read somewhere. Furthermore, this definition makes it easy for anyone to identify a noun in sentences because we understand that students easily define a noun but find it difficult to identify noun/nouns in sentences.
So how is noun a naming word?
A noun is a naming word because it is used to identify a person, an animal, thing, place, or idea. The name of this blog (eduvocabulary) is a noun because it is a name people use to identify it. As you read, you are either using a tablet, phone or computer. Each of these is a noun because it is what we use to identify them. I am a writer and you are a reader. Both writer and reader is a noun because they are names that identify us distinctively. So, whenever you see a naming word in any sentence, it is a noun.
Examples of Nouns that are animals
Lion, Tiger, Cat, Rat, Birds
Examples of Nouns that are Places
U.S.A, South Africa,
Nigeria, Manhattan, Lagos
Examples of Nouns that are Things (inanimate objects)
Examples of nouns that are Ideas
How to Identify nouns in sentences
Sometimes, nouns are
difficult to spot in sentences because they are not the name of person, animal,
place, thing and idea that many people are familiar with. In this case, we
talked about few unique rules to identify nouns that are difficult to spot in
sentences.
Word Suffix
To identify a noun in a sentence, you can rely on the 3-4 letters that end the word which is generally called suffix. Examples:
- Ion - Admonition, administration, abbreviation, correction, corruption etc
- Ment - Instrument, disappointment, moment, embezzlement, amazement etc
- Ter - Writer, gangster, interpreter
- Hood - Boyhood, livelihood, motherhood etc
The purpose
To identify a noun, you
need to first understand its function in the sentence. Study the nature of the
noun and what it does within the sentence. This is how you will be able to
differentiate a noun from an adjective, a verb, and other word class.
There is a difference
between “I love my mother” and “Love is a crime”
In the first sentence, love is a verb and in the second sentence, love is a noun. The reason why they are different despite that the word “love” is a single word is because what they do/represent is not the same.
The use of determiner
To identify a noun, look out for a determiner in the sentence. If a determiner like a, an, this, that, my precedes a word, that word is most likely a noun. Examples:
- An Umbrella
- A moment
- This Administration
- My Life
More Examples of nouns in sentences
-
Mary has the ability to cancel the payment.
Nouns in this sentences
are “Mary, ability, and payment.
The nouns are “Life, and
money.
- I am a girl of my words. If I say yes, it is yes. And if I say no, it is no.
Nouns here are “girl, words. Etc
Note: The word “yes” is a
complicated word to classify to a specific part of speech in English. In a
sentence, yes can be adverb, interjection or others.
Read Also: 15 Ways To Say Because With Suitable Examples