Nouns, Nouns, Nouns!

1. Nouns, Nouns, Nouns! Everything you ever wanted to know about nouns.

2. Recognize a noun when you see one. • George! Jupiter! Ice cream! Courage! Books! Bottles! Godzilla! • All of these words are nouns, or words that identify the whos, wheres, and whats in language. Nouns name people, places, things, and ideas. • Circle the nouns: George and Godzilla walked to Antonio’s to order a large pepperoni pizza. Definition

3. Nouns can function as subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, objects of prepositions, and subject complements. • Examples Godzilla ordered a large pizza and ate the pie in one bite. Godzilla = subject for the verbs ordered& ate George offered Godzilla a $10 loan to buy a second pizza. Godzilla = IO of offered; loan = DO of offered Functions

4. While eating a piece of pizza, George dripped tomato sauce onto his shirt. Shirt = object of the preposition onto In Godzilla’s opinion, George is a slob. Slob = subject complement of linking verb is Functions

5. Nouns have different classes: proper and common; concrete and abstract; count and noncount; and collective. • Proper nouns name specific, one-of-a-kind items while common nouns identify general varieties. Proper nouns always begin with a capital letter. Commons nouns only require capitalization if they start the sentence. • Example: George and Godzilla dined at Antonio’s. • Example: A boy and his monster dined at a pizza restaurant. Classes

6. You can classify concrete and abstract nouns by their ability to register on your five senses. If you can see, hear, smell, taste, or feel the item, it is a concrete noun. If you cannot experience the item with your senses, it’s abstract. • Example: Pizza is Godzilla’s favorite food. Pizza is concrete because you can taste, smell, and feel it. • Godzilla never tips the delivery boy. Politeness is not one of his strong points. Politeness is abstract because you cannot feel it. Classes

7. Many nouns can be singular or plural. These are called count nouns. • Noncount nouns have only a singular form. • Example: Godzilla ate three pizzas, two delivery boys, and six parked cars. • All the nouns are plural (adding –s) • Example: After overindulging at Antonio’s, Godzilla got severe indigestion. • Indigestion = noncount. You cannot write “indigestions”. Count

8. Collective nouns name groups. Although the group is singular unit, it has more than one member. • Collective nouns are tricky when trying to make verbs/pronouns agree with them. The reason? They can be singular or plural depending on the behavior of the members of the group. • Examples of collective nouns: army, audience, board, committee, cabinet, class, department, faculty, public, team, jury, firm, troupe, etc. Collective

9. If the members of the collective noun group are acting as a unit – everyone doing the same thing at the same time – the collective noun is singular and requires singular verbs and pronouns. • Example: Despite the danger to its new van, the SWAT team pursues the pizza-eating Godzilla through the streets of Miami. Collective

10. If the team members are acting individually, or not as a group, then the collective noun is plural and requires plural pronouns and verbs. • Example: After getting their butts kicked by Godzilla, the team change into their street clothes and sob in their cars on the way home. Collective