Noun Handbook

Question 1

Abstract nouns

Answer 1

ideas, characteristics, or qualities, such as courage, pride, goodness, and success.

Question 2

Noun

Answer 2

a word that names a person, place, or thing. Examples of nouns include: man, city, book, and courage. Nouns often follow words like a, an, and the.

Question 3

Noun adjuncts

Answer 3

nouns used as adjective or nouns used to describe another noun.

Question 4

Noun infinitive

Answer 4

an infinitive that is a noun. Noun infinitives can be a subject (To eat is fun.); a direct object (I like to eat.); a predicate nominative (A fun thing is to eat.); an appositive (My hope, to travel, never happened.); an object of a preposition (I want nothing but to save.)

Question 5

Nouns of address (nominatives of address)

Answer 5

are the persons or things to which you are speaking. They are set off from the rest of the sentence by a comma or commas, may have modifiers, and are not related to the rest of the sentence grammatically. If they are removed, a complete sentence remains. They may be first, last, or in the middle of the sentence. Examples: John, where are you going? Where are you going, John? Where, John, are you going?

Question 6

Object of the preposition

Answer 6

a noun or noun equivalent in a prepositional phrase.

Question 7

Predicate nominative (predicate noun)

Answer 7

• a word that completes a linking verb and renames the subject. It is a complement or completer, because it completes the verb. Predicate nominatives complete only linking verbs. The linking verbs include the following: the helping verbs is, am, are, was, were, be, being, and been; the sense verbs look, taste, smell, feel, and sound; and verbs like become, seem, appear, grow, continue, stay, and turn. The word equals can always replace the verb in a sentence having a predicate nominative. Example: Mr. McCormick is a teacher. Mr. McCormick equals a teacher.

Question 8

Collective nouns

Answer 8

name groups, such as team, class, and choir.

Question 9

Compound nouns

Answer 9

are made up of more than one word, such as dining room, Bill of Rights, Jeff Hansen, and homerun. Compound nouns can also be concrete or abstract.

Question 10

Concrete nouns

Answer 10

name things that exist physically as sidewalk, bird, toy, hair, and rain.

Question 11

Count nouns

Answer 11

are nouns that can be counted. You can use a, an, many, or a number before count nouns. Examples include: one boy, six sheep, and many days.

Question 12

Mass nouns

Answer 12

are nouns that are not countable and include words like gasoline, water, and dirt.

Question 13

Objective complement

Answer 13

a noun or an adjective, which follows the direct object renaming or modifying it. It is used with verbs like make, name, call, choose, elect, and appoint. It is not set off with commas as an appositive is. Example: I call my dog Badger. A verb that has an objective complement in the active voice may, in the passive voice, have a predicate nominative or a predicate adjective. Examples: My dog is called Badger by me. I consider my dog smart. My dog is considered smart by me.