BASIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR

FINAL EXAM ASSIGNMENT

Leturer : Ledy Nurlely, M.Pd.

Arranged By :

- Anisa Juliyanti (2223190042)

- Kinanti Puspa Andini (2223190027)
- She Darin Zukhruf (2223190036)

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

TEACHER AND EDUCATION FACULTY

UNIVERSITY OF SULTAN AGENG TIRTAYASA

2019
 NOUN

A. Definition

The simplest definition of a noun is a thing and nouns are the

basic building blocks of sentences. These things can represent a
person, animal, place, idea, emotion – almost any thing that you
can think of. Dog, Sam, love,
phone, Chicago, courage and spaceship are all nouns. The more
nouns you know in a language, the better you will be able to
communicate your ideas. Here, we’ll take a closer look at what
makes a noun a noun, and we’ll provide some examples of how
nouns are used.

B. Categories of Nouns

There are several categories of nouns, and there can be an

overlap across the categories. For example, there
are common and proper nouns, and concrete and abstract nouns,
yet some nouns are both concrete and common, or concrete and
proper. It will become clear as you read on.
Common nouns are the words that refer to most general things:
country, evening, laughter, puppy, umbrella
Common noun examples in the following sentences are in bold for
easy identification.

 Cathy loves the weekends in the country.

 We enjoy swimming after breakfast.
 The cup fell and broke.

Proper nouns are the name that identifies someone or something,

a person or a place. Proper nouns are capitalized. John is a
proper noun, since the word John represents a particular, single
example of a thing, John.
Proper noun examples: Mary, Jimmy, Aunt Audrey, Honda,
Philadelphia
Proper noun examples in the following sentences are in bold for
easy identification.

 Emily loved spending time with her Aunt Nancy in Paris.

 Buick and Jeep are two important carmakers.
 We visited Lake Erie, which separates the United
States and Canada.

Concrete nouns represent a thing that is real and tangible: pig,

person, rock, smell, air, soup, Larry are all concrete nouns.
Concrete noun examples: cup, computer, diamond, rollercoaster,
shampoo, Debby
Concrete noun examples in the following sentences are in bold for
easy identification.

 The person threw the rock across the yard.

 My dog, Oreo, jumped in the air and caught the ball!
 Can you smell the soup, John?

An abstract noun represents a thing that is more like a concept or

idea: love, integrity, democracy, friendship, beauty, knowledge are
examples of abstract nouns.
Abstract noun examples in the following sentences are in bold for
easy identification.

 Love and friendship are equally important.

 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
 Your mind can know a million things.

Nouns can also be categorized as countable or uncountable.

A countable noun is a thing can be numbered or counted:
airplane, sock, bowl, noodle, teacher, as in two airplanes, three
socks, 1000 noodles.
Countable noun examples: peach, horse, shirt, telescope
Countable noun examples in the following sentences are in bold
for easy identification.

 There are five dogs in the street.

 I bought three tons of coal.
  Margaret has six pairs of blue sandals.

Uncountable nouns can have a quantity or amount but cannot be

actually counted: water, music, clothes, understanding. In the
second example above, tons is a countable noun, but coal is not.
Coal is referred to as an uncountable noun.
Uncountable noun examples: hate, confidence, attractiveness,
wisdom
Uncountable noun examples in the following sentences are in bold
for easy identification.

 Love is in the air.

 The four elements are air, earth, fire and water.
 Her humor knows no bounds.

Collective nouns refer to a group of people or things: audience,

team, bunch, family, class. When speaking of collective nouns,
Americans consider them as singular, using singular verbs with
them, such as the group dances happily. When speaking British
English, both singular verbs and plural verbs might be used, as in
the group dance crazily before the Queen.
Collective noun examples: government, jury, team, bunch, school,
class, and room (the people in the room or building)
Collective noun examples in the following sentences are in bold
for easy identification.

 The team threw confetti when it was over.

 Steve buys the band some sandwiches.
 Meredith told the class she was getting married.

As mentioned above, when we talk of categories of nouns, some

nouns can be described as being in more than one category.
Some nouns are concrete and countable, for example, such as
raindrops and wedding rings, while some are proper and
uncountable, such as the Atlantic Ocean and Alaska.
 Compound Noun, Sometimes two or three nouns appear
together, or even with other parts of speech, and create
idiomatic compound nouns. Idiomatic means that those nouns
behave as a unit and, to a lesser or greater degree, amount to
more than the sum of their parts.
Compound Example: six-pack, five-year-old, and son-in-law,
snowball, mailbox, etc.

C. Types of Nouns

1. Noun Phrase

A noun phrase is either a pronoun or any group of words

that can be replaced by a pronoun. For example, 'they', 'cars',
and 'the cars' are noun phrases, but 'car' is just a noun, as you
can see in these sentences.

a. The structure of noun phrases

As I said, noun phrases can be infinite in length, but they

would sound absurd if they got too long. So let's take the
following noun phrase as our working model:

"The very tall education consultant with the roving eye"

The structure of this noun phrase contains three sections:

 Pre-modification
o The =determiner
o very =adverb (intensifying)
o tall = adjective
o education = pre-modifying noun
 Head noun
o consultant

 Post-modification
o with the roving eye = preposition phrase

b. Parts of Noun Phrase

A noun phrase has two parts: a noun, and any modifiers

connected to that noun. Most often, these modifiers will
be adjectives, articles, and prepositional phrases. The
modifiers may also be determiners.

a. Noun
A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea. All noun phrases
will have core noun, with modifiers connected to it.
Example
The pirate buried his treasure on an island for retirement
The four nouns in this sentence are a person, thing, place
and idea, respectively.

b. Modifier – Article
There are only three articles in modern English: a, an, the.
An article is always connected to a noun, and so when one is
used it is always part of a noun phrase.
Example 1
The river is deeper after it rains
In this example, the noun phrase contains a noun (‘river’)
and an article (‘the’). The noun phrase ‘the river’ is the
subject of the sentence.
Example 2
An enormous tree stands on the riverbank
This noun phrase begins with the article ‘an’. The article is
attached to the noun ‘tree’. In between these two words is
the adjective ‘enormous’. The article and the adjective are
both modifiers describing the noun in the noun phrase ‘an
enormous tree’.

c. Modifier – Adjective
An adjective is a word that describes nouns or pronouns.
Example 1
The young puppy chased its tail
The adjective ‘young’ is describing ‘puppy’. The two words
combine to make a noun phrase, which is the subject of the
sentence.
Example 2
Many people want to live quiet, peaceful lives
This noun phrase has two adjectives: ‘quiet’ and ‘peaceful’.
Each adjective modifies the noun ‘lives’. They describe what
kind of lives people want.

d. Modifier – Prepositional Phrase

A prepositional phrase is a group of words that begins with a
preposition and ends with an object. They add details, such
as where something is or when an event occurred.
Example 1
The box in the attic is full of memories
This noun phrase includes the prepositional phrase ‘in the
attic’. It is giving us a detail about the noun ‘box’ – where it is
located. The noun phrase in this example is the subject of
the sentence.
Example 2
My little brother always feared monsters in the closet
The prepositional phrase ‘in the closet’ modifies (describes)
the noun ‘monster’. The noun and prepositional phrase
combine to make the noun phrase ‘monsters in the closet’.
 e. Determiner
A determiner is a word that clarifies a noun. It is used to
differentiate between similar nouns. Determiners answer
questions such as ‘Which one?’, ‘Whose?’, ‘How many?”, or
‘How much?’
Example 1
Those people are so friendly!
The determiner ‘those’ tells us which people are friendly. The
noun phrase ‘those people’ is the subject of the sentence.
Example 2
Max gave a biscuit to your dog
In this sentence ‘your’ is clarifying to which dog Max gave a
biscuit to. The noun phrase ‘your dog’ is the indirect
object of the sentence (see part 4 for more on indirect
objects).
Example 3
All children should have access to a free education
The noun ‘children’ is modified by the determiner ‘all’. The
determiner ‘all’ answers the question ‘How many children?’
The noun phrase ‘all children’ is the subject of the sentence.
c. Types of Noun Phrase

a. Noun Phrase as a Subject

A subject is a noun that the sentence is about.
Example
Very few giant pandas remain in the wild
This sentence is clearly about the small number of wild Pandas,
and so ‘very few giant pandas’ is the subject of the sentence.

b. Noun Phrase as a Complement

A compliment re-states or gives more information about a noun.
It always follows a state-of-being verb (is, are, am, will be, was,
were).
Example
A sailor’s best friend is a wide, open sea
The noun phrase ‘a wide, open sea’ gives us more information
about the sailor’s best friend, the sea. Therefore it acts as a
complement to the noun phrase ‘best friend’.

c. Noun Phrase as a Direct Object

A direct object is the noun or pronoun that receives the action of
a verb.
Example
Grandma cooked a meal for ten people, even though there
were only four of us
The verb in this sentence is ‘cooked’, and the object that is
being cooked is ‘a meal.’ The rest of the phrase ‘for ten people’
creates a noun phrase that acts as a direct object.

d. Noun Phrase as an Indirect Object

An indirect object receives the direct object.
Example
Trudy gave her hungry, crying baby a bottle
The noun phrase answers the question, “Who did Trudy give
the bottle to?” The phrase ‘her hungry, crying baby’ is the
indirect object because it receives the bottle (‘a bottle’ is the
direct object because it is receiving the action ‘gave’).
Forms of Nouns

The same noun can appear in different forms, depending on how

it is used.
A countable noun can be singular or plural. Most nouns in
English form the plural by adding -s or -es to the noun, although
there are some exceptions:

 One dog, two dogs, red dog, blue dog.

 I missed not just one bus today, but two buses.
 New York City is one of the grandest cities in the world.

Uncountable nouns and proper nouns are always considered to

be singular:

 The air in the countryside and in the city is clean and fresh
(not the airs).
 All knowledge is a good thing (not knowledges).
 Florida has mostly warm weather in the winter.

Nouns can also indicate ownership. This form of a noun is called

a possessive noun, and is indicated by an apostrophe and the
letter –s. It is equivalent to using the word of and the noun.

 The light’s color is red. (or: The color of the light is red.)
 The country’s flag has blue stripes. (or: The flag of the
country has blue stripes.)
 The hunters’ guns were loaded. (or: The guns of the
hunters were loaded.)
Note that when the noun already ends with -s, possession is
indicated by adding only an apostrophe – hunters’ guns,
not hunters’s guns.
A noun can be used as the subject of a sentence, or in another
capacity as an object:

 John is nice. – John is the subject of the sentence

 I saw John – John is the simple (direct) object of the
sentence.
 I gave John the phone. – John is the indirect object of the
sentence.
 I gave the phone to John. – John is the object of the
preposition to.

D. Additional Info About Nouns

Sometimes nouns are used as adjectives, which is referred to as

a noun adjunct. In fact, English is amazingly flexible in that
almost any noun can also be used as an adjective, though
sometimes the use is considered comical or slangy:

 Ocean view – Ocean describes the type of view you would

see outside your window.
 Jazz concert – Jazz is specifying what kind of concert is
being played.
 Cheese omelet – It’s a certain type of omelet, eggs with
cheese. Using a true adjective as in a cheesy omelet means
any type of omelet (onion and peppers, mushroom) that has
a lot of cheese.
 Dog tired – Really really tired – even though dogs aren’t
known to be especially tired.
 Fear Factor – An example of using just any old word as a
noun adjunct.

E. Examples

Examples of Noun :
Naming People

It could be a name of any person, for example: John, Fatima,

Singh, Michael, Tom and so on.

Naming Places

It could be a name of any place, for example: America, China,

Church, Taj Mahal, Paris and so on.

Naming Things

Naming things are like Car, Hat, Bottle, Table, Chair, Ball and
so on.

Naming Animals

Dog, Rabbit, Elephant, Chicken, Horse.

Naming Feeling/Qualities/Ideas

Joy, Fear, Beauty, Strength, Anger.

Example Sentences
1. I live in Australia.
2. Jenny is my sister.
3. I love to play with my dog.
4. The name of this monkey is Boo.
5. Pacific Ocean is very vast.
F. Functions of Nouns
Nouns can be used as a subject, a direct object, and an indirect
object of a verb; as an object of a preposition; and as an adverb
or adjective in sentences. Nouns can also show possession.
Subject: The company is doing great. Roses are the flowers of
love.
Direct object: I finally bought a new mobile.
Indirect object: Max gave Carol another chocolate.
Object of preposition: Roses are the flowers of love.
Adverb: The train leaves today.
Adjective: The office building faces the mall.
Possession: The lion’s cage is dangerous.
My brother’s daughter is adorable.
 REFERENCES

https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/nouns/
https://www.theidioms.com/nouns/
https://www.learngrammar.net/english-
grammar/noun#compound
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/noun-phrase
https://englishsentences.com/noun-phrase/