Lecture Notes: What is a Noun?

Language Is Made Up Of Building Blocks

It’s useful to remember how language works. Big pieces rely on smaller pieces. Like legos, we connect words together to create sentences. We snap sentences together to build paragraphs. We tailor paragraphs into different shapes and functions to inform, entertain, explain, or persuade – to tell our story or to share the information we think is important. In short, we use building blocks to convey our message.

This will be review for many of you, but it’s important we start with the basics, to make sure have a firm foundation for our writing and reading. It’s like a house. You can build a house with the most beautiful materials and gucci features, but if the foundation isn’t solid, that house won’t stand for long. 

Let’s start with nouns.

Nouns

A noun is a person, a place, a thing, or an idea. A noun can be singular or plural, and it can be common or proper.

• Singular nouns name one person, place, thing, or idea (e.g., dog, city, book).
• Plural nouns name more than one (e.g., dogs, cities, books), often formed by adding -s or -es, though some have irregular forms.
• Common nouns are general names for people, places, things, or ideas and are usually not capitalized (e.g., teacher, park, holiday).
• Proper nouns name specific people, places, organizations, or events and are always capitalized (e.g., Ms. Lopez, Central Park, Independence Day). In a proper noun or proper noun phrase, all major words are capitalized.

Some Examples: