Different Types of Nouns

Everyone thinks of nouns as places, people, things, basically, they're like the life of words. Many people understand what a noun is, and may even be able to notice a large amount of nouns in a context or an abnormally short use, but did you know nouns can be categorised? I didn't, until recently.

In every most sentences, you'll get a noun or two, they're like the filling of a word, needed to make it tasty (or in word sense, needed to make it sound correct). In that sentence alone, I said quite a few nouns, they're marked by underline.

The Nouns have two basic category differences. We could call these the children of nouns. One, the 'proper nouns', went off and didn't create any sub-categories. The other, 'common nouns', went off and created another two. Of course, you could give sub-categories for all nouns and all sub-nouns. For example, you could split proper nouns into places and people.

To the meaning of these categories.

• Proper Nouns - These nouns refer to a specific place, a specific person, a specific animal. To put it simpler, there is only one of each noun or it's a title that is broke down to just one. Proper nouns usually come with capital letter, although this is not always necessary. Examples of proper nouns are: Ed Sheeran, London, Mondeo, Julie. Specific, as I've stated previously.
• Common Nouns - Instead of proper nouns, which categorise nouns into specifics, common nouns just categorise them into a 'type' - i.e. While proper nouns will only be a specific breed of dog, the common noun will just be 'dog'. It classifies things into general types, rather than specific types. Examples of these nouns are: animals, shoes, nature, cars.

Now, as stated previously, Common Nouns split off into two branches. These are known as sub-categorise or branches. In noun world, a sub-branch is only used when there is too many nouns for just one category, thus placing anything in there. You use sub-branches to find specific nouns for your chosen word.

These two categories are concrete nouns and abstract nouns.

• Concrete Nouns - These are the branch of nouns that are visible to us. They refer to physical things like people and places but in more detail, things that can be measured, touched and seen. It's hard to understand concrete but if you do, good! Examples may make this more clear, so might hearing what abstract nouns are. Examples - chocolate, kittens, wheelbarrows, baths, tables.
• Abstract Nouns - Now I've covered concrete nouns, abstract should be a bit more easier to explain (hopefully). Abstract nouns are the nouns we cannot touch, measure, etc. They're nouns that name events, emotions, feelings and movements. Examples of abstract nouns are: birthdays, happiness, midday, numbers, colours, parties.

I can assure you, I'm no English Teacher, merely a Student learning A-Level Language. I hope you can start to understand how nouns are categorised. Maybe, one day, you may be able to work these out of by heart but keep coming back if you need any help!

Oh, and if you're getting trapped with all this weird category stuff just post on here or message me. I'm always looking to help out people in need.