Presented by:-

George Tudu(EGE15028)Sumit Biswas(EGE15031)Partha Protim Bora(EGE15040)Lakhyajit Nath(EGE15050)

NounsThe noun category includes words denoting all kinds of

physical objects (people, animals, places, things) and substances: apple, dog, fire, London, sister, water etc.

There are also large numbers of nouns denoting abstract entities: absence, debt, fear, love etc. But the general definition for noun is:

“A grammatically distinct category of words which includes those denoting all kinds of physical objects, such as persons, animals and inanimate objects.”

In a very basic sense, nouns can be divided into two major parts.

Countable NounsUncountable Nouns.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COUNTABLE AND UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

They have singular and plural form.

You can use the article a / an with their singular form.

They only have one form.You can’t use either numbers

or the article a /an with them.

COUNTABLE NOUNS UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

COUNTABLE OR UNCOUNTABLE?AN APPLE / APPLES FRUIT / SOME FRUIT

A BOTTLE / A FEW BOTTLES

WINE / A LITTLE WINE

A TABLE / MANY TABLESFURNITURE /

MUCH FURNITURE

What does countability of nouns mean?Countability is a syntactic property of noun phrase in

language. In generation, used to decide between a cake, cake, a piece

of cakeIn analysis, helps to resolve ambiguity. I need a paper by this evening (academic/newspaper) I need some paper by this evening. (material) I need the paper this evening. (ambiguous)

Major divisions in the countability of nouns1) Countable Nouns2)Uncountable Nouns3)Singular-only Nouns4)Plural-only Nouns5)Bipartite

COUNTABLE NOUNSCountable nouns: Countable nouns can take cardinal

numerals(one, two, three……….etc.) as dependent. For example:

One bottle, two bottles, one book, two book, one person, two persons.

UNCOUNTABLE NOUNSUncountable nouns cannot take cardinal numerals as

dependent. For example:Equipment, furniture, footwear, clothing*one equipment, *two equipments*one furniture *two furnitures.Both equipment and furniture cannot combine with any

cardinal numerals such as one, which goes with singular forms.

We can count uncountable nouns indirectly by using a phrase like a piece of …, a bit of ….

A bar of chocolate

NON-COUNTS WITH SINGULAR ONLY(SINGULAR TANTUM)Nouns those which a singular forms are given below: Crockery, dross, footwear, news, linguistics, phonetics,

NON-COUNTS WITH PLURAL ONLY(PLURALIA TANTUM)Nouns with only plural form but no singular are

illustrated below:Alms, auspices, belongings, clothes, scissors, spoils,

trousers,

BIPARTITE NOUN• Bipartite nouns are those nouns which have two parts• Nouns such as scissors, glasses, binoculars, are

invariably plural• These words designate individualized objects, but

they have a bipartite structure

DISTINCTIONS OF COUNT AND NON-COUNT NOUNSA count noun generally denotes a class of individual

entities of the same kind but non count denotes physical substances that can be divided into smaller amounts of the same kind.

In count nouns an individual member of the same kind cannot be divided into smaller entities; but in non-counts, an individual member of the same kind can be divided into smaller parts.

EXAMPLES

SOME RULES OF COUNT NOUNS:

They come in two forms: singular(e.g. table) and plural(e.g. tables)

The singular form combines with the singular verb(e.g. the table is damaged); the plural form takes the plural form of the verb (e.g. the tables are damaged)

They can be counted, i.e. they happily go with numerals, e.g. three tables are damaged

They also go with the indefinite article, e.g. A table is in the room

SOME RULES OF MASS NOUNS:They come only in one form, and that form is the

singular form, e.g. water, but *watersThe singular form of the mass noun goes with the

singular form of the verb, e.g. Milk is whiteThey cannot be counted by numerals, e.g. *two water .

Instead they can be counted only with the help of a partitive construction, e.g. One glass of milk

Nouns in English are usually categorized as either count or mass.

Count nouns are thus defined as the nouns that refers to objects ;mass nouns by contrast refer to masses.

the noun table, for example, is a count noun while the noun water falls into the mass category.

CONCLUSION

REFERENCESHuddleston, R. A Student’s Introduction to English

Grammar (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,2003)

Borah, Gautam K. A Fuzzy Category Nouns in English: Ontology and Grammar (Presented at 7th International Congress on English Grammar, 28-30 December 2011)

THANK YOU THANK YOU