NOUNS

A noun is a word used to name a person, place, thing, or idea.

Example:

Person	John, Mary, boy, girl, man, woman, doctor, lawyer
Place	Abuja, Lagos, home, room, town, hospital, market
Thing	Table, chair, book, bag, river, mountain, pole, lorry
Animal	Dog, cat, horse, cow, goat, bird, fish, reptile,
Plant	Tree, grass, shrub, flower, vegetable
Incident	Flood, war, earthquake, tsunami,
Event	Christmas, Easter, birthday, Independence Day
Activity	Jogging, dancing, singing, racing,
Feeling	Fear, pleasure, anger, hate, joy, grief, sympathy
State	Freedom, chaos, luxury, wisdom
Quality	Courage, honesty, generosity, patient, determination
Idea	Darkness, truth, heritage, faith, expensive, diet
Group	Crowd, team, class, staff, herd,
Measure	Scoop, pinch, litre, kilogram, yard, mile

Clues To Nouns:

 There are three excellent clues that will help you identify nouns:

1.   Noun Ending – Most nouns have the plural form ‘s’. Example: Eggs, books, letters etc.

                             - Some nouns end with the suffix ‘ness’. Example: happiness, goodness etc

                             - Other noun ending words are addition, ability, punishment, acceptance,

                                Truth etc

2.    Signal Words – Most nouns come after adjectives or articles  such as ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’,

                                 ‘some’, ‘many’,’ much’, ‘several’, ‘few’, ‘more’ etc.  Example:

                                 a tree, an orange, the door, some books, many children, much oil

                                 several restaurants, few hours, more food..... ( The words underlined

                                 are nouns)

                       

-          Prepositions like at, of, to, for, after, as, like, in, on are some signal words that come before nouns and pronouns.

Example: at home, of plastic, to school, after breakfast, in bed etc.                  

                         

3.     Before Verbs – Nouns often precede or come before verbs in some sentence pattern.

                               - Example: John is,  Mary was, drivers are, pencils were, members can,

                                                   Dogs bite, birds sing, goats eat, fish swim, children play etc.

Exercise:  Pick out the nouns used in the following sentences.

1. Peter is a student.

2. Look at the sheep grazing in the field.

3. Daisy spends too much time watching television.

4. The women can ride bicycle.

5. The winner received a prize.