Noun, Pronoun and Adjectives

Question 1

What is a noun?

Answer 1

A noun is a word for name, place, person, animal, idea, or a thing. A thing could be an abstract thing like an emotion(love), event(discussion), a quality(cleanliness), an action(removal), or a result of an action(removal)

Question 2

What are the ways to spot a noun?

Answer 2

1. Look right in front of the word, if it is followed by a, an, the or my you’ve got a noun
2. If the above does not work try to add a silly word in place of a word that you think is a noun, e.g. add cheese. If the resulting sentence would still be grammatically correct then you’ve got a noun

Question 3

What are collective nouns?

Answer 3

Collective nouns refer to a group composed of members, e.g. jury, committee, army, family etc. They are always treated as singular

Question 4

What are mass nouns?

Answer 4

Mass nouns are nouns that can not be counted directly e.g. bread, water without adding a word such as piece or cups

Question 5

What is the pro-tip for countable and uncountable nouns?

Answer 5

Use number with countable nouns and amount with uncountable nouns e.g. “A great number of friends have shown a great amount of kindness”

Use less for something which is uncountable and fewer for something which is countable

Question 6

What are different categories of pronouns?

Answer 6

1. Personal pronouns - Subject pronouns, Object pronouns, and possessive pronouns
2. Reflexive pronouns - Used when the action performed and received is by the subject only e.g. “The dog groomed itself”
3. Intensive pronouns - Similar to reflexive but used to add emphasis - “She herself bought the house”
4. Indefinite pronoun - These do not refer to any specific thing, e.g. anyone, anybody, anything
5. Demonstrative - They are used to point out specific things e.g. this, that, these and those
6. Interrogative - Used to ask questions e.g. Who, whom, whose and which

Question 7

Find the issue with the below sentence

Representative Nancy Pelosi and the lobbyist had a heated disagreement about her
agenda

Answer 7

Whose agenda? The Senators or the lobbyists? Even if you feel like you could figure it out from
context or common sense, the sentence is wrong (unless the lobbyist is clearly indicated to be male).

Question 8

1. Are indefinite pronouns ending in -one/-body/-thing singular or plural
2. Is each singular or plural

Answer 8

1. Singular

2. Each is always singular even if it appears plural

Question 9

What are antecedents?

Answer 9

A word or group of words that a pronoun refers to. They can only refer back to a noun or a pronoun

Question 10

What does pronoun one mean?

Answer 10

Sometimes it means one of the things just mentioned or it can also mean everyone, or the average person

Question 11

What is wrong with the below sentence?

People who want to become politicians should keep one’s reputation
spotless.

Answer 11

One does not mix with the nouns that require pronouns like he, they, etc.

Question 12

What are adjectives?

Answer 12

Adjectives describe or modify a noun. They answer questions such as “what kind”, “which one” and “how many”?

Question 13

What is wrong with the below statement?

I love French food because they really know how to make a good sauce.

Answer 13

the pronoun is they, but here French cannot be the antecedent. French is an adjective describing food, the correct answer would be

I live French Food because the french really know how to make a good sauce

Question 14

What are absolute adjectives?

Answer 14

These are adjectives that cannot be intensified e.g. you can’t say more dead because one is either dead or not