NOUNS

Nouns are the names of things, places or people. There are four types of noun: concrete, proper, collective and abstract.

Concrete or common nouns

A concrete noun is a physical thing – usually something you can see or touch:

apple	key	queen	umbrella
cat	lake	ranch	volunteer
diary	needle	soldier	watch
garage	orange	tin	zoo

Proper nouns

A proper noun always begins with a capital letter. It is the name of a person, a place or an institution:

Alistair	Ben Nevis	Buckingham Palace
Bob	England	The British Museum
Christopher	Guildford	Hampton Court
Dale	River Thames	The Royal Navy

Collective nouns

A collective noun refers to a group of objects, animals or people. It is a singular word but most collective nouns can be made plural. Here are a few examples:

singular	plural
choir	choirs
flock	flocks
herd	herds
orchestra	orchestras
team	teams

Abstract nouns

An abstract noun cannot be seen or touched. It can be a feeling, a state of mind, a quality, an idea, an occasion or a particular time. Here are some examples:

anger	month	peace
beauty	night	pregnancy
darkness	health	summer
happiness	patience	war

Sometimes abstract nouns can be formed from adjectives by adding the suffix ‘-ness’. There will be more about adjectives in the next chapter.

adjectives	abstract nouns
bright	brightness
dark	darkness
kind	kindness
ill	illness
sad	sadness
ugly	ugliness

Other abstract nouns are formed differently. Look at the following examples:

adjectives	abstract nouns
high	height
patient	patience
pleasant	pleasure
wide	width
wonderful	wonder

CAPITAL LETTERS

Proper nouns and adjectives formed from proper nouns always start with a capital letter. So do the days of the week and the months of the year.

proper nouns	adjectives
America	American
Austria	Austrian
Belgium	Belgian
England	English
France	French
Portugal	Portuguese

Titles

Capital letters are also used for the titles of people, books, plays, films, magazines:

Mrs Brown	Princess Anne
The Secret Garden	A Tale of Two Cities
A Midsummer Night’s Dream	The Cocktail Party
My Fair Lady	Hamlet

Buildings and institutions

Buildings and institutions start with capital letters:

Bristol University	British Museum
Conservative Party	Guildford Cathedral
National Gallery	Surrey County Council

Religious words

The names of religions and their members also start with capitals:

Christianity	Christian
Hinduism	Hindu
Islam	Moslem/Muslim
Judaism	Jew

Sacred books start with a capital:

Bible

Koran

Torah

Religious festivals are also written with a capital:

Christmas	Easter	Eid
Hanukka	Ramadan

Subjects and objects

The main noun or pronoun in the sentence is the subject of the sentence. It performs the action. All sentences must contain a subject:

Fiona was very tired. (The subject of the sentence is Fiona.)

If there is an object in the sentence, that is also a noun or pronoun. It is usually near the end of the sentence. It has something done to it. A sentence does not have to contain an object:

The footballer kicked the ball into the net. (The object of the sentence is ball.)

PRONOUNS

To avoid the frequent use of the same noun, pronouns can be used instead.

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns take the place of a noun. They are identified as 1st, 2nd and 3rd persons. They can be used as both subject and object. Look at the following table:

	singular	plural
	subject	object	subject	object
1st person	I	me	we	us
2nd person	you	you	you	you
3rd person	he, she,	him, her,	they	them
	it	it

It was sunny yesterday. (The subject of the sentence is it.)

His mother scolded him. (The object of the sentence is him.)

Notice that the 2nd person is the same in both the singular and plural. In the past ‘thou’ was used as the singular but today ‘you’ is in general use for both although ‘thou’ may be heard occasionally in some parts of the country.

Example

I was born in Yorkshire but spent most of my teenage years in Sussex.

In the above sentence the 1st ‘person’ is used because the writer is telling his or her own story. An author writes an ‘autobiography’ when writing about his or her own life.

Ellen Terry was born in 1847 and became a very famous actress. She acted in many of Shakespeare’s plays.

This is written in the 3rd person. Someone else is writing about Ellen Terry. She is not telling her own story so the personal pronoun used in the second sentence is ‘she’. A book written about Ellen Terry by someone else is called a ‘biography’.

Novels

Novels (books that are fiction although sometimes based on fact) can be written in either the 1st person where the main character is telling the story, or the 3rd person where the author tells a story about a set of characters.

The 2nd person

The only books written in the 2nd person are instruction books. These include recipe books and ‘how to’ books:

Take two chicken breasts and, using a little fat, brown them in the frying pan, turning them frequently. Mix the sauce in a saucepan and gently heat it through. When it simmers, pour it over the chicken.

The ‘you’ in the recipe is ‘understood’. ‘You’ (the 2nd person) are being told what to do. All instruction books, therefore, are written in the 2nd person.

Possessive pronouns

Possessive pronouns are related to personal pronouns and indicate that something ‘belongs’. They replace nouns. They are identified in the following table:

	singular	plural
	personal	possessive	personal	possessive
1st person	I	mine	we	ours
2nd person	you	yours	you	yours
3rd person	he, she,	his, hers,	they	theirs
	it	its

Demonstrative pronouns

Nouns can also be replaced with demonstrative pronouns. These are:

singular	plural
this	these
that	those

This is interesting.

That is not right.

These are expensive.

Those look delicious.

Interrogative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns are used to ask questions. They are used at the start of a question as in the following examples:

Which do you wish to take?

Who is moving into that house?

Whose is that pencil?

THE ARTICLES

There are three articles. They are usually placed before nouns and they are : the, a, an.

‘The’ is the definite article. This is placed before a specific thing:

The team cheered its opponents.

‘A’ and ‘an’ are indefinite articles and are used more generally. ‘An’ is always used before a vowel:

He brought a computer.

There was an epidemic of smallpox in the eighteenth century.

VERBS

A verb is a ‘doing’ or ‘being’ word. The ‘doing’ verbs are easy to identify: to write, to play, to dance, to work, etc.

The verb ‘to be’

There is one ‘being’ verb. The present and past tenses of the verb ‘to be’ are shown below.

	present	past
1st person	I am	I was
	we are	we were
2nd person	you are	you were
3rd person	he, she, it is	he, she, it was
	they are	they were

Finite verbs

Finite verbs must show tense. They can be past, present or future and are always connected to a noun or pronoun. Look at the following examples:

Yesterday she was very unhappy, (past tense)

He plays the piano very well, (present tense)

Tomorrow I will go to London, (future tense)

Transitive and intransitive verbs

Transitive verbs are those which take an object:

He trimmed the hedge.

‘Hedge’ is the object so the verb is transitive.

Intransitive verbs do not take an object:

She dances beautifully.

There is no object so the verb is intransitive.

Some verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively.

He wrote a letter, (transitive: ‘letter’ is the object)

She writes exquisitely, (intransitive: there is no object)

Non-finite verbs

The non-finite verbs are the infinitive, the present participle and the past participle.

The infinitive

The infinitive is the form of the verb that has ‘to’ before it:

To run, to dance, to write, to publish, to dine.

If an infinitive is used in a sentence, there must be a finite verb as well. The infinitive cannot stand alone. Look at the following:

To run in the London Marathon.

This is not a sentence because it contains only the infinitive. There is no finite verb. Here is the corrected version.

He decided to run in the London Marathon.

This is a sentence because it contains ‘decided’, a finite verb. This has a ‘person’ connected to it and is in the past tense.

Many people consider it incorrect to ‘split’ an infinitive. This is when a word is placed between the ‘to’ and the verb:

It is difficult to accurately assess the data.

The following example is better. The infinitive has not been ‘split’ by the word ‘accurately’:

It is difficult to assess the data accurately.

The present participle

The present participle always ends in ‘-ing’. To form a finite verb, introduce it by using the auxilary verb ‘to be’. The past or present tense of this verb is used and the finite verb becomes the present progressive or past progressive tense. Remember that a finite verb can consist of more than one word.

Ian is helping his mother, (present progressive tense)

I am writing a letter, (present progressive tense)

Julie was doing her homework, (past progressive tense)

They were watching the cricket, (past progressive tense)

The gerund

The present participle can also be used as a noun and in this case it is called a gerund:

Shopping is fun.

The wailing was continuous.

The past participle

The past participle is used with the auxiliary verb ‘to have’; it then forms a finite verb. Either the present or the past tense of the verb ‘to have’ can be used. It will depend on the context. Look at the following examples. The past participles are underlined.

She had scratched her arm.

He had passed his examination.

Ken has cooked the dinner.

Chris has written a letter to his mother.

The first three participles in the examples above are the same as the ordinary past tense but ‘has’ or ‘had’ have been added. These are regular verbs and the past participle ends in ‘-ed’. In the last example ‘written’ is different and can only be used with the verb ‘to have’. A number of verbs are irregular, including the following:

infinitive	past tense	past participle
to be	was/were	been
to break	broke	broken
to build	built	built
to do	did	done
to drink	drank	drunk
to drive	drove	driven
to fall	fell	fallen
to feel	felt	felt
to fling	flung	flung
to fly	flew	flown
to leap	leapt	leapt
to run	ran	run
to sleep	slept	slept
to swim	swam	swum
to tear	tore	torn
to win	won	won
to write	wrote	written

When the verb ‘to have’ is added to the past participle, the finite verb is either the present perfect or the past perfect tense. This depends on which tense of the verb ‘to have’ has been used.

present perfect	past perfect
I have torn my skirt	He had won the race
She has swum twenty lengths	We had promised to visit him.
They have danced all night.	They had built a new house.

The perfect progressive tenses

A continuous action is indicated by the use of the perfect progressive tenses. In this case the past participle of the verb ‘to be’ follows the verb ‘to have’ which in turn is followed by the present participle of the required verb. The finite verb then consists of three words.

Present perfect progressive

That dog has been barking all night.

She has been crying all day.

Past perfect progressive

He had been playing football

She had been working on the computer.

Errors

The present and past participles are often confused. The present participle is always used with the verb ‘to be’. The past participle is used with the verb ‘to have’.

The following sentences are wrong:

I was sat in the front row.

He was stood behind me.

The first suggests that someone picked you up and placed you in the front row! The second one also suggests that ‘he’ was moved by someone else. The following are the correct versions:

I was sitting in the front row.

or

I had sat in the front row.

and

He was standing behind me.

or

He had stood behind me.

Incomplete sentences

Look at the following examples:

To write to his mother, (infinitive)

Running for a train, (present participle)

Swum across the river, (past participle)

These are not sentences as they contain only non-finite verbs. They have no subject and no tense. The following are sentences because they contain finite verbs:

He intends to write to his mother.

She is running for a train.

They have swum across the river.

CHECKLIST

• Each sentence must contain at least one finite verb.
• The finite verb must be linked to the noun or pronoun which is the subject of the sentence.
• The present participle can be connected to the verb ‘to be’ to make a finite verb.
• The past participle can be connected to the verb ‘to have’ to make a finite verb.
• Nouns can be replaced by pronouns.
• An autobiography is written in the 1st person because the author is telling his or her own story.
• A biography is written in the 3rd person. It is the story of someone’s life told by another person.
• A novel can be written in either the 1st or 3rd person.
• An instruction manual always uses the ‘understood’ 2nd person as it gives instructions to the reader.

EXERCISES

• 1.Complete the following sentences:
  • (a)The harassed housewife . . . . . . . . . .
  • (b)Sarah . . . . . . . . . .
  • (c)Queen Victoria . . . . . . . . . .
  • (d). . . . . . . . . .won the race
  • (e)His cousin . . . . . . . . . .
  • (f)He . . . . . . . . . . to play tennis.
  • (g)The telephone . . . . . . . . . .
  • (h)He . . . . . . . . . . the computer.
  • (i)The castle . . . . . . . . . . a ruin.
  • (j)The dog . . . . . . . . . . John.
• 2.In the following passage replace the nouns, if necessary, with pronouns:
  Sarah was working in her office. Sarah looked out of the window and saw the window cleaner. The windows were very dirty. The windows needed cleaning. Sarah asked the window cleaner if he had rung the front door bell. The window cleaner asked if Sarah wanted her windows cleaned. Sarah said she did want the windows cleaned. The window cleaner said the garden gate was unlocked. Sarah was sure she had locked the garden gate. When the window cleaner rang the door bell for the second time, Sarah heard the door bell.

See page 171 for suggested answers.