Ads
related to: proper noun vs pronoun
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (Africa; Jupiter; Sarah; Walmart) as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (continent, planet, person, corporation) and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class (a continent, another planet, these persons, our corporation).
The English pronouns form a relatively small category of words in Modern English whose primary semantic function is that of a pro-form for a noun phrase. [1] Traditional grammars consider them to be a distinct part of speech, while most modern grammars see them as a subcategory of noun, contrasting with common and proper nouns.
A noun phrase (or NP) is a phrase usually headed by a common noun, a proper noun, or a pronoun. The head may be the only constituent, or it may be modified by determiners and adjectives . For example, "The dog sat near Ms Curtis and wagged its tail" contains three NPs: the dog (subject of the verbs sat and wagged ); Ms Curtis (complement of the ...
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (glossed PRO) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not consider them to form a single class, in view of the variety of functions they perform cross-linguistically.
While proper names may be realized by multi-word constituents, a proper noun is word-level unit in English. Thus, Zealand, for example, is a proper noun, but New Zealand, though a proper name, is not a proper noun. [4] Unlike some common nouns, proper nouns do not typically show number contrast in English.
Nouns are also created by converting verbs and adjectives, as with the words talk and reading (a boring talk, the assigned reading). Nouns are sometimes classified semantically (by their meanings) as proper and common nouns (Cyrus, China vs frog, milk) or as concrete and abstract nouns (book, laptop vs embarrassment, prejudice). [4]
The following three subsections consider the binding domains that are relevant for the distribution of pronouns and nouns in English. The discussion follows the outline provided by the traditional binding theory (see below), which divides nominals into three basic categories: reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, personal pronouns, and nouns (common and proper).
Nouns seem to possess a well defined but covert system of grammatical gender. We may call a noun masculine, feminine or neuter depending on the pronouns which it selects in the singular. Mass or non-count nouns (such as frost, fog, water, love) are called neuter because they select the pronoun it. Count nouns divide into masculine and feminine.