Chapter 5 - English Nouns

Question 1

What is inflection?

Answer 1

Sometimes a word changes its form. This is called inflection.

Question 2

Words perform different functions in a sentence. These different functions are called “cases.” In English there are three cases. What are they?

Answer 2

• Subjective case
• Objective case
• Possessive case

Question 3

If a word is the subject of the sentence, it is in the subjective case. What role does the subject play in a sentence?

Answer 3

• The subject is that which does the action of the active verb.
• The subject is usually the first noun (or pronoun) before the verb in a sentence.

Question 4

If a word shows possession, it is in the possessive case.

Answer 4

(“ His Greek Bible is always by his bed.”)

Question 5

If a word is the direct object, it is in the objective case. What role does the objective case play in a sentence?

Answer 5

• The direct object is the person or thing that is directly affected by the action of the active verb. This means that whatever the verb does, it does so to the direct object.
• The direct object usually follows the verb in word order.

Question 6

What is the subject, object and possession in this sentence?

He took my car.

Answer 6

Question 7

How does number or quantity change a word?

Answer 7

Words can be either singular or plural, depending upon whether they refer to one, or more than one. For example, “Students (plural) should learn to study like this student” (singular).

Question 8

What are the 3 word genders?

Answer 8

• Maculine - ex: he
• Feminine - ex: she
• Neuter - ex: it

(He, it, and her are all forms of the same pronoun, the third-person singular personal pronoun.)

Question 9

What is natural gender?

Answer 9

Natural gender means that a word takes on the gender of the object it represents. We refer to a rock as an “it” because we do not regard the rock as male or female. But we refer to a man as “he” and a woman as “she.”

Question 10

What is declension, and what are the popular ways of expressing it in vocabulary?

Answer 10

Declensions patterns of inflection and are different ways to form the plural.
* by adding an '’s’‘ to the end of a word.
* by changing an '’a’‘ to an '’e’‘ - ex: man, men.
* by changing goose to geese.