Words {noun}| can refer to persons, ideas, places, or things. Nouns can be about sensed things {concrete noun} or about ideal things {abstract noun}.
After noun phrases, noun phrases {apposition}| {appositive} with similar meaning can be between commas.
Nouns can be main sentence parts {nominal sentence}.
Nouns {noun complement} {complement, noun} can complete verbs.
Nouns have sentence uses {case, noun}|.
grammar
Nouns can be subjects {subjective case}. Nouns can be direct objects {objective case}. Nouns can show possession {possessive case}. Nouns can be indirect objects {nominative case}. Nouns can be adjectives {adnominal case}. Nouns can be objects used {instrumental case}. Nouns can be help to, or cause of, actions {agentive case}. Nouns can be accompaniments {comitative case}. Nouns can be hypothetical or conditional {subjunctive case}.
meaning
Besides these grammatical functions, nouns can indicate space and time relations, prepositional object, person addressed, or place {locative case}. Nouns can be separate from rest of sentence {absolute case}. Nouns can be for becoming or transforming into something {factive case}. Nouns can name uninflected word form {common case}.
types
Cases can be nominative case, vocative case, and all other cases {oblique case}.
Nouns {substantive noun} can be adjectives.
Nouns {common noun}| can be about classes or general things. Common nouns are not proper nouns and are not pronouns.
Nouns {proper noun}| can be about particular thing or specific, named things.
Verbs {gerund}| can be in noun form, as continuing actions, and can govern case. Verbals {gerundive} {verbal adjective} can be adjectives, typically after direct objects. Only Indo-European languages have gerunds.
Verbs can be in noun form {participle}|, as completed actions.
Verbal nouns {supine noun} can have unusual inflection.
Verbs {verbal, grammar}| can be nouns or adjectives, such as in infinitives, participles, gerunds, gerundives, and supines.
Nouns can be male, female, or neutral {gender}|. Russian, Greek, Latin, and German use three genders. Languages can use two genders, male and female. Swahili uses six genders. Gender refers to social roles and other meanings besides biology. Some languages do not use gender.
In gender systems {natural gender system}, animate objects can be actual gender, and inanimate objects can be neuter.
Nouns {epicene} can be for male or female gender.
Nouns are singular or plural {number, grammar}. The idea of counting is in all languages. Chinese and Vietnamese do not use noun number categories but denote number by classifier words. Classical Greek, Sanskrit, and some Slavonic languages use number 2 {dual number}, as well as singular and plural. Fijian uses number 3 {trial number}.
If used with cardinal numbers, numerals can indicate classes {auxiliary numeral}, as in Japanese.
Nouns {count noun} can be enumerable. Count nouns can take indefinite articles and are plural. Bounded nouns, nouns about events, and telic nouns are similar to count nouns.
Nouns {mass noun, syntax}| can be singular but about divisible objects. Mass nouns are similar to plural nouns. Unbounded nouns, nouns about processes, and atelic nouns are similar to mass nouns.
Numbers {numeral, noun}| can be cardinal, ordinal, iterative, multiplicative, or partitive.
Nouns {compound noun} can combine two or more things, using connected nouns or more than one noun.
Nouns {collective noun}, such as "orchestra", can be about sets of similar things.
Nouns {antecedent, noun} {referent, noun} {pronoun}| can substitute for nouns. Pronouns agree with referents in number, person, and gender. Pronoun references should be to antecedents. Pronoun references should be unambiguous. Pronoun references should be definite. Pronoun references should be specific.
Nouns can refer to speaker, hearer, others, or viewpoint {person, grammar}. All languages use person categories. Person is I, we, you, he, she, it, or they. Pronouns {exclusive personal pronoun} {inclusive personal pronoun} can delineate groupings.
Pronouns {demonstrative pronoun} can point to referents: this, that, these, and those.
Pronouns {indefinite pronoun} can be general: some, someone, somebody, something, any, anyone, anybody, anything, everyone, everybody, everything, other, another, either, neither, all, many, few, each, both, one, none, nobody, and nothing.
Pronouns {intensive pronoun} can be for emphasis: myself, ourselves, yourself, yourselves, himself, herself, itself, and themselves.
Pronouns {interrogative pronoun} can be in questions: who, whose, what, whom, which, when, where, why, and how.
Pronoun forms {obviative} can refer to new third persons.
Pronouns {personal pronoun} can substitute for people or things: I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours, you, your, yours, he, him, his, her, his, hers, it, its, they, them, their, and theirs.
Pronouns {reflexive pronoun} can show action on themselves: myself, ourselves, yourself, yourselves, himself, herself, itself, and themselves.
Pronouns can connect clauses to antecedents {relative pronoun}: that, which, who, whom, and whose.
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Date Modified: 2022.0225