Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Indefinite noun phrases without these adjectives, like a chair, one coat, or three men, can typically be understood as either specific or non-specific, leaving them unmarked for specificity. However, in some languages, noun phrases in specific positions are unambiguous regarding specificity.
A proper noun (sometimes called a proper name, though the two terms normally have different meanings) is a noun that represents a unique entity (India, Pegasus, Jupiter, Confucius, Pequod) – as distinguished from common nouns (or appellative nouns), which describe a class of entities (country, animal, planet, person, ship). [11]
A personal name identifies, not necessarily uniquely, a specific individual human. The name of a specific entity is sometimes called a proper name (although that term has a philosophical meaning as well) and is, when consisting of only one word, a proper noun. Other nouns are sometimes called "common names" or "general names". A name can be ...
The term proper noun denotes a noun that, grammatically speaking, identifies a specific unique entity; for example, England is a proper noun, because it is a name for a specific country, whereas dog is not a proper noun; it is, rather, a common noun because it refers to any one member of a group of dog animals.
Classifiers and specific nouns in Kuuk Thaayorre can also co-occupy the head of a noun phrase to form something like a compound or complex noun as in ngat minh.patp 'CL(fish) hawk' which is the complex noun meaning 'stingray'.
In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns.
Noun class 1 refers to mass nouns, collective nouns, and abstract nouns. examples: вода 'water', любовь 'love' Noun class 2 refers to items with which the eye can focus on and must be non-active examples: дом 'house', школа 'school' Noun class 3 refers to non-humans that are active. examples: рыба 'fish', чайка 'seagull'
The meaning of the noun used for a common name may have been lost or forgotten (whelk, elm, lion, shark, pig) but when the common name is extended to two or more words much more is conveyed about the organism's use, appearance or other special properties (sting ray, poison apple, giant stinking hogweed, hammerhead shark).