Word classes of nouns

The head of a noun phrase either takes the form of a noun or a pronoun. The head determines such features of the noun phrase as number (singular or plural) and gender (masculine, feminine or neuter). In terms of meaning, the head determines what kind or type of entity the whole noun phrase refers to.
Thus, the following noun phrases have the same noun, car, as head and therefore refer to the same kind of entity, namely some kind of car. The exact reference of the full noun phrases differ because of the different determiners and modifiers that accompany the head.

(1) the blue car that Lisa bought
(2) the yellow car that is parked outside my office
(3) a French car with four-wheel steering

Nouns can be grouped into different classes based on their grammatical properties.

A first major distinction among nouns is that between proper nouns and common nouns. Simply put, proper nouns are nouns that functions as names of people, cities, countries, etc. Typical examples are: Bill, Stockholm, and Denmark. All other nouns are common nouns, e.g. car, water, and democracy.
The distinction is relevant to capitalisation. Thus, proper nouns always start with a capital letter.

• More on capitalisation

Since proper nouns are used to refer to unique individuals, places, and so on, they do not show a distinction between definite and indefinite forms, which for common nouns is signalled by the definite and indefinite articles. Most proper nouns occur without an article, like Sweden, Lund, Bill, etc. However, there are also classes of poper nouns which have a definite article as part of their name. Examples include names of daily newspapers (The Times, the Observer, etc.), names of theatres, museums, hotels, restaurants, and similar establishments (the Metropolitan, the British Museum, the Hilton, the Ritz, etc. If the name of such an establishment consists of a noun or noun phase in the genitive, then even these proper nouns occur without an article (McDonald’s, Sloppy Joe’s).
Proper nouns in the plural form another important class that occur with the definite article. Typical examples include names of mountain ranges (the Himalayas), groups of islands (The Canaries), and others (the Midlands, the Neherlands, the Balkans).

Common nouns may be divided into countable and uncountable nouns. As the terminology suggests, countable nouns can combine with numerals like one, two, three, etc., whereas uncountable nouns cannot. Moreover, uncountable nouns are always singular, whereas most countable nouns may be either singular or plural. A number of properties related to this basic difference distinguish the two classes of nouns. The following table lists the most important ones, and provides examples of both types of noun. (The asterisk * marks an example as ungrammatical.)

There are certain quantifiers that are used in connection with uncountable nouns and others that are used in connection with countable nouns. In (1), quantifiers that can only be used with countable nouns have erroneously been used in connection with uncountable nouns. The resulting constructions are ungrammatical:

(1) *many pork; *quite a few pork; or *a large number of pork.

What we have to say is instead is, for instance

(2) much pork; a large amount of pork; or lots of pork.

Note in relation to this that the relatively informal quantifying expressions a lot of, lots of, and loads of can be used to quantify both countable and uncountable nouns. However, they cannot be used in formal academic writing.
In addition to the ways of quantifying uncountables just mentioned, we can also make use use what is called ‘partitive constructions’. Examples of partitive constructions include the following:

(3) a bottle of water; a clap of thunder; a grain of wheat; a slice of ham; a state of mind; a piece of bread; a box of chocolate; an act of violence

A partitive construction is thus a construction where we make use of a countable noun that can be used to denote a certain portion of something uncountable. By doing this, we can can now count the portions, even though their content as such is uncountable. For example, we can use the following noun phrases:

(4) seven bottles of water; six slices of ham; two boxes of chocolate

As we may conclude from the examples in (iii) and (iv) above, some partitive expressions denote portions or quantities that are fairly well defined, while others are rather inexact. For instance, it is not at all obvious how much violence is included in an act of violence.
For language users in general, it is important to learn the idiomatic partitive expressions that go together with the various uncountable nouns that you somehow want to quantify. Your language will easily be too dull, informal, and inexact if you constantly make use of general expressions such as a piece of X or a bunch of X. Moreover, only using quantifying expressions, such as some X or a great deal of X, is not an option either, since they are too inexact for most purposes.    
A good dictionary will help you find the right partitive expressions, but you can also get some help from the following list:

a word of advice                                  a round of applausea work of art
a pile of ashes
a bar of chocolatea box of chocolatea cup of chocolatea packet of cigarettesa web of deceita speck of dusta work of fictiona suit of furniturea blade of grassa body of knowledgea roar of laughtera beam of lighta flash of lightninga stroke of good lucka fit of madness  a piece of musica piece/item of news   a piece of piean area of researcha body of researcha bag of ricea field of studya lump of sugara cloud of suspiciona web of trusta shot of whiskya gust of wind   a log of wooda splinter of wooda piece of work
                            

It is important to understand that even though a certain noun is basically countable, it may also have a fairly frequent uncountable use (and vice versa). Take the word beer, for instance. It is basically uncountable, as are all liquids and substances. In spite of beer being basically uncountable, we can naturally say things such as (1) and (2):

(1) She had three beers yesterday.
(2) This is actually a beer that I don’t like.

These examples show that one and the same noun can have both a countable and an uncountable use. In fact, this is not at all uncommon.
It is also important to understand that this distinction between countable and uncountable nouns is not ad hoc. Instead, it is based on what the world is like, or at least on how language users view the world and the various types of entities in it that can be denoted by nouns.
What is meant by this is that whether a noun is categorised as countable or uncountable in a certain language depends on whether or not the speakers of that language think that the entity that the noun is typically used to refer to is possible to count or not. If something is possible to count, it can relatively easily be defined and observed where one of this entity begins and ends and where another one begins and ends, as it were.
Given this brief and simplified account of the ontological and cognitive basis of the uncountable/countable distinction, we should be able to form the hypothesis that fairly closely related languages like English and Swedish, which are primarily spoken by people from relatively similar cultures, should not differ very much when it comes to which nouns are countable and which are uncountable.This hypothesis is correct. For the large majority of nouns, there is no difference in countability between the English noun and its Swedish counterpart. This is good news, of course.
However, there are also a number of important exceptions that we need to be aware of (in addition to remembering that one and the same noun may be used in more than one way), partly in order to get the agreement between subject and verb right. Estling Vanneståhl (2007:99) provides the following list of nouns which are uncountable in English, but countable or plural in Swedish (please note that the list is not intended to be exhaustive):

Notice that quite a few of the words on this list are words that are quite frequent, both in academic and everyday uses of English. 

Some nouns are such that they cannot be used in the singular, that is, they are always regarded as denoting something plural, and they always take plural agreement. Important members of this category appear in the following examples:

(4) My new jeans are Italian.
(5) We have to buy Peter new pyjamas, since his old ones are worn out.
(6) In this experiment, headphones are to be used.
(7) The ship’s doctor made use of tweezers to remove the foreign object.
(8) The minutes were kept by Sheila.
(9) The goods have been exported to Germany.
(10) All our valuables have been stolen.
(11) The police are investigating the case.
(12) There were hundreds of police present in Stockholm in connection with the royal wedding.

(13) Do you know how many people are here?
(14) The cattle were seen grazing in the field.
(15) We do not want vermin in our house, but they are here anyway.

This may not seem so problematic at first sight. Sometimes we use the corresponding nouns in much the same way in Swedish. This is the case with jeans, for instance which requires a plural adjective in Swedish:

(1) Mina nya jeans var inte dyra.

This is often explained by the fact that jeans, trousers (‘byxor’), tights, etc. somehow consist of two parts. The Swedish noun pyjamas, however, is different from its English counterpart, in spite of the fact that pyjamas traditionally consist of two parts. In Swedish we get (2), while the corresponding English sentence would be (3):

(2) Jag måste köpa honom en ny pyjamas.

(3) I must buy him new pyjamas.

In other words, we cannot use *a new pyjamas, since pyjamas is always plural in English.

Headphones corresponds to Swedish hörlurar, which is also normally plural, even though (4) is fully grammatical:

(4) Min ena hörlur är trasig.

The Swedish word corresponding to the English tweezers is pincett. This noun is not plural in Swedish, even though it can be said to consist of two parts. It seems as if this rule or tendency (i.e. that nouns that denote objects that consist of two parts are treated as plural) is stronger in English than in Swedish. This means, for instance, that (5) does not correspond to (6) or (7), but to (8):

(5) Jag behöver en pincett nu.

(6) *I need a tweezers now.

(7) *I need a tweezer now.

(8) I need (some) tweezers now.

Even though minutes is plural in English, the corresponding Swedish word protokoll is a regular noun that can be either singular or plural:

(9) Protokollet var välskrivet.

(10) Protokollen hade inte blivit justerade.

Goods corresponds to Swedish varor. However, in Swedish it is perfectly normal to use the singular vara (11), while good is not normally used in the singular in English (12):

(11) Jag letar efter en viss vara.

(12) *I’m looking for a certain good.

However, in the field of economics, the singular good is actually used, as in the authentic (13):

(13) Money is a good that acts as a medium of exchange in transactions. Classically it is said that money acts as a unit of account, a store of value, and a medium of exchange. Most authors find that the first two are nonessential properties that follow from the third. In fact, other goods are often better than money at being intertemporal stores of value, since most monies degrade in value over time through inflation or the overthrow of governments (https://www.thoughtco.com/definition-of-money-in-economics-p2-1146354, emphasis by AWELU).

Just like valuables is plural in English, värdesaker is plural in Swedish. The singular värdesak is normally not used in Swedish, even though it occurs. So does in fact the singular valuable in English, but this, too, is rather infrequent.

Finally in this subsection we have some nouns that do not end in a plural -s, but which are problematic because they are always plural, often in a collective or generic sense. For instance, when we use the police, we normally refer to the whole police force, and when we talk about people, we often talk about people in general.

It is important, however, that we understand that there is a clear difference between being uncountable and being inherently plural with a (typically) collective/generic meaning. Grammatically, the most important difference is that while uncountable nouns always take singular subject-verb agreement, plural nouns always take plural agreement.

Even though these nouns are inherently plural and collective in English, this need not be the case in other languages, such as Swedish. For instance while (14) is fully grammatical in Swedish, (15) is not possible to use in English. Instead we have to use (16):

(14) Polisen var ung och stilig.

(15) *The police was young and handsome.

(16) The policeman was young and handsome.

Nouns that end in —ics look plural, but are actually most often treated as singular. Thus, when heading a noun phrase which functions as the subject, they trigger singular agreement on the verb.

(16) Statistics is becoming increasingly popular among our students.
(17) Mathematics is an integral part of our culture.
(18) Western economics has tended not to be influenced by theories from other parts of the world.

In the examples above, the nouns in —ics denote academic disciplines. However, some of these nouns may also be used to denote the practical application of the discipline, and are then treated as ordinary plurals, e.g. by taking plural determiners and by triggering plural agreement on the verb.

(19) These statistics show that our production of beef has almost doubled.
(20) The acoustics of the new concert hall are very lively.

Zero plural nouns are nouns that look the same in the plural as they do in the singular. A well-known example is the noun sheep. Since sheep is a zero plural noun, it looks the same in the two sentences below. However, this does not prevent it from being singular in the first sentence and plural in the second one, as indicated by the different verb forms, is and are:

(21) My sheep is black.
(22) My sheep are black.

Other nouns that belong to this category are aircraft, Chinese, deer, elk, headquarters, horsepower, hovercraft, means, offspring, Portuguese, salmon, series, species, trout, and Vietnamese. When in doubt, please consult a good dictionary.

There is a group of nouns whose members are commonly referred to as ‘foreign plurals’. What the nouns in this group have in common is that both their singular and their plural forms have been borrowed from other languages, which means that the plural ending is not the regular English —s, but something else.
Examples of such foreign plural nouns that are important to remember, especially when writing academic texts (since many of these words tend to be academic in nature), are analysis-analyses, basis-bases, criterion-criteria, diagnosis-diagnoses, hypothesis-hypotheses, parenthesis-parentheses, phenomenon-phenomena, stimulus-stimuli, and thesis-theses. 
What usually happens when a word is borrowed into English (or into some other language) is that it is changed in line with the morphology of the language into which it has been borrowed. Consequently, there are some foreign words in English that have both a foreign and an English plural form. Examples include appendix-appendixes/appendices, cactus-cactuses/cacti, focus-focuses/foci, and index-indexes/indices.
A couple of etymologically plural nouns are sometimes used as (uncountable) singulars. The two most common examples are media and data. The singular uses are not universally accepted, however, so non-native writers are well-advised to use them as plurals in examples like the following:

(23) These data show that our initial assumption was right.
(24) The media have become more interested in environmental issues.

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Nouns fall under two classes: (A) proper
nouns; (B) common
nouns.¹

¹ The name
proper is
from Lat. proprius ‘one’s
own’. Hence a proper name means
one’s own individual name, as distinct from a common
name, that can be given to a class of
individuals. The name common is
from Lat. communis and
means that which is shared by several things or individuals
possessing some common characteristic.

A. Proper nouns are
individual names given to separate persons or things. As regards
their meaning proper nouns may be personal names (Mary,
Peter, Shakespeare), geographical names
(Moscow, London, the Caucasus), the
names of the months and of the days of the week (February,
Monday), names of ships, hotels, clubs
etc.

A large number of nouns now proper were originally
common nouns (Brown, Smith, Mason).

Proper nouns may change their meaning and become
common nouns:

George went over to the table and took a
sandwich and a glass of

champagne.
(Aldington)

В. Common nouns are
names that can be applied to any individual of a class of persons or
things (e. g. man, dog, book),
collections of similar individuals or
things regarded as a single
unit (e. g. peasantry, family),
materials (e. g. snow,
iron, cotton) or abstract notions (e.
g. kindness, development).

Thus there are different groups of common nouns:
class nouns,
collective nouns,
nouns of material and
abstract nouns.

Nouns may also be classified from another point of
view: nouns denoting things (the word thing
is used in a broad sense) that can be
counted are called countable
nouns; nouns denoting things that cannot be counted are called
uncountable nouns.

1. Class nouns denote
persons or things belonging to a class. They are countables and have
two numbers: sinuglar and plural. They are generally used with an
article.¹

¹ On the use
of articles with class nouns see Chapter II, § 2, 3.

“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Parker, “I wasn’t
in the shop above
a great deal.”

(Mansfield)

He goes to the part of the town where the shops
are. (Lessing)

2. Collective nouns
denote a number or collection of
similar individuals or things regarded as a single unit.

Collective nouns fall under the following groups:

(a) nouns used only in the singular and denoting a
number of things collected together and regarded as a single object:
foliage, machinery.

It was
not restful, that green foliage.
(London)

Machinery new to
the industry in Australia was
introduced for preparing

land. (Agricultural
Gazette)

(b) nouns which are singular in form though plural
in meaning: police, poultry, cattle,
people, gentry. They are usually called
nouns of multitude. When the subject of the sentence is a noun of
multitude the verb used as predicate is in the plural:

I had no idea the police
were so
devilishly prudent. (Shaw)

Unless cattle are
in good condition in calving, milk
production will never

reach a high level. (Agricultural
Gazette)

The weather was warm and the people
were sitting
at their doors. (Dickens)

(c) nouns that may be both singular and plural:
family, crowd, fleet, nation. We
can think of a number of crowds, fleets or different nations as well
as of a single crowd, fleet, etc.

A small crowd is
lined up to see the guests arrive. (Shaw)

Accordingly they were soon afoot, and walking in
the direction of the scene of

action, towards which crowds
of people were already pouring from a
variety

of quarters. (Dickens)

3. Nouns of material
denote material: iron,
gold, paper, tea, water. They are
uncountables and are generally used without any article.¹

¹ On the use
of articles with nouns of material see Chapter II, § 5, 6, 7.

There was a scent of honey
from the lime-trees in flower.
(Galsworthy)

There was coffee
still in the urn. (Wells)

Nouns of material are used in the plural to denote
different sorts of a given material.

…that his senior counted upon him in this
enterprise, and had consigned a quantity of select wines
to him… (Thackeray)

Nouns of material may turn into class nouns (thus
becoming countables) when they come to express an individual object
of definite shape.

C o m p a r e:

To the left were clean panes of glass.
(Ch. Bronte)

“He came in here,” said the waiter looking at
the light through the tumbler,

“ordered a glass of
this ale.” (Dickens)

But the person in the glass
made a face at her, and Miss Moss went
out.

(Mansfield)

4. Abstract nouns
denote some quality, state, action or
idea: kindness, sadness, fight. They
are usually uncountables, though some of them may be countables (e.
g. idea, hour).²

² On the use
of articles with abstract nouns see Chapter II, § 8, 9, 10, 11.

Therefore when the youngsters saw that mother
looked neither frightened nor

offended, they gathered new courage.
(Dodge)

Accustomed to John Reed’s abuse — I never had
an idea of
replying to it.

(Ch. Bronte)

It’s these people with fixed ideas.
(Galsworthy)

Abstract nouns may change their meaning and become
class nouns. This change is marked by the use of the article and of
the plural number:

He was responsive to beauty
and here was cause to respond. (London)

She was a beauty.
(Dickens)

…but she isn’t one of those horrid regular
beauties.
(Aldington)

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Words are the building blocks in any sentence. They just don’t ‘mean’ something, they ‘do’ something in every sentence. Hence words are grouped into word classes based on what they do. A word class is a group of words that have certain common features. The term “word class” is analogous to the more conventional term, “part of speech.” It is also variously named grammatical category, lexical category, and syntactic category.

• Types of Word Classes
• Open and Closed Word Classes
• Open Word Classes
• Closed Word Classes
• How to identify the word classes in a sentence?
• How to classify a word class?
• What is the difference between a word class and part of speech?

Word classes can be divided into two families:

• Lexical Classes: Also known as open classes and form classes. The lexical classes include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
• Function Classes: Also known as closed classes and structure classes. Includes: pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.

Open and Closed Word Classes

As previously mentioned some word classes are open, that is, the class can be expanded with the addition of new words. Take the example of the class of nouns, it is potentially infinite as the number of words in the class is increasing as new scientific and technological discoveries are made.

The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed developments in computer technology which have in turn given rise to many new nouns like the Internet, URL website, bitmap, email, etc.

On the other hand, the word classes of prepositions, determiners, or conjunctions are known as closed word classes. Words like of, the, and but come under these. They are named closed word classes because they consist of a definite set of words. These classes never expand even though the words included in the class may change their spelling.

Open Word Classes

1) Nouns

This class includes words that you frequently use in everyday life. Nouns are most commonly understood as “naming” words, that is, it performs the function of naming “people, places or things”.

• A person – Boy, Girl, John, etc
• A thing- House, Dog, etc
• A place- China, America, etc

However, the use of nouns is not restricted to just names of people, places, or things. Nouns also denote abstract and intangible concepts such as an idea, quality, or state. Example: Danger, Happiness, Love, etc.

2) Verbs

The words that you use to describe an action are known as verbs. Hence verbs are generally known as “action” words. Have a look at the given example: Rahul rides a scooter. The verb in the above sentence denotes an action that Rahul performs which is the action of riding a scooter.

However, the idea of verbs as “action” words is somewhat restricted. Many verbs don’t stand for action at all as in the given instance: Rahul seems desperate. We cannot say that the verb ‘seems ‘ refer to an action.

3) Adverbs

In English, an adverb describes a word that alters the meaning of a verb, adjective, or another adverb. Adverbs in a sentence give you more information about the sentence. They are used to express how an action is fulfilled. Adverbs can broadly be categorized into Simple Adverbs, IInterrogative adverbs, and Relative Adverbs.

Remember:

• Most adverbs end with the common ending – ly.
• An adverb that modifies an adjective or another adverb usually goes before it.

4) Adjectives

Adjectives describe the quality of a noun. For example They stay in a beautiful house

The word beautiful indicates or refers to one of the attributes of the house that is described. Hence beautiful becomes the adjective in the above sentence.

A point to keep in mind: Some adjectives can be identified by their ending. Typical adjective endings include: able, al, ful, ic, etc.

You can even try out our other articles on How to Improve Your Vocabulary as well to expand your knowledge base.

Closed Word Classes

1) Determiners

You might have often noticed that nouns are preceded by words like the, a, or an. These words are known as Determiners. They suggest the type of reference that the noun has.

• The determiner ‘the’ is called a Definite Article. It can be placed both before singular and plural nouns. For example The Taxi, The taxis
• The determiner a or an is known as the Indefinite Article. It is used along with a singular noun. Example: A taxi

Apart from these, many other determiners express quantity. These include ‘al’, ‘both’, ‘many’ etc.

2) Conjunctions

These are used to express connections between different words.

Example: John and David are friends. And is used as a conjunction in the given sentence.
The most familiar conjunctions in English are: and, but, and or.

Conjunctions are further divided into two:

• Coordinating Conjunctions: These conjunctions connect elements of equal syntactic structure. Example: Paul and David study together.
• Subordinating Conjunctions: Connects elements of unequal syntactic structure. Example: I left early because I had an interview the next day.

3) Prepositions

Prepositions indicate the relation between different words. They occur before a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase and indicate a direction, time, place, location, and spatial relationship. Common prepositions include across, after, at, before, by, during, from, in, into, of, on, to, under, with, without, etc.

4) Pronouns

If we did not have the pronoun word families we would have to repeat a whole lot of nouns. A word that takes the position of a noun is named as a pronoun. Pronouns can be employed as a substitute for a noun.

• Pronouns are divided into 5 categories:
• Personal Pronouns: I, you, she, etc
• Demonstrative Pronouns: This, these, etc
• Possessive Pronouns: Yours, His, etc
• Interrogative Pronouns: Which, What, etc
• Reflexive Pronouns: Herself, Himself, etc.
• Reciprocal Pronouns: Each other
• Indefinite Pronouns: Few, Nobody, etc.
• Relative Pronouns: Which, Whom, etc.

5) Interjections

Short exclamations like Oh!, Ah! etc are known as Interjections. Even though they have no grammatical value, we often use them in daily speech. Interjections are primarily used to express emotions such as anger, surprise, etc. Given below are a few examples.

Well! That hurts
Hey! Don’t be so clumsy

Remember, an interjection is always followed by an exclamation mark.

Read More:

• English Idioms
• Literary Devices

FAQs on Word Classes

1. How to identify the word classes in a sentence?

A word class is a group of words that have certain common features. To find out the word classes within a sentence it is important that you familiarise yourself with the most common word classes in English. These include nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, etc.

2. How to classify a word class?

Word classes in English belong to two major categories. These are Open word classes that include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The second category is closed word classes that include: pronouns, determiners, interjections, etc.

3. What is the difference between a word class and part of speech?

The term “word class” is analogous to the more conventional term, “part of speech”. Both these terms refer to a group of words that have certain common features.

Conclusion

To understand the grammatical structures of sentences in a better way it’s best if you begin with word classes. Even though comprehending the different word classes may initially be a hectic task, once you master word classes, you will reach the exact meaning or message conveyed by a sentence.