Nouns, Determiners and Pronouns

1. Nouns, Determiners and Pronouns

2. Definitions of “Noun” • Classic “A person, place, or thing” • Sanskrit grammarians - does not have a time axis, like frozen time • Formal definition - takes nominal affixes: noun derivational affix (e.g., government), can take plural, can occur with possessive suffix • Functional definition - can be preceded by an article (the/a house), can appear in a frame sentence ((The) _____ seem(s) nice.)

3. Number • Types of plural: normal, internal change, zero plural, foreign plurals (syllabi, curricula, indices, data) • Nouns of quantity - three dozen, hundred, pound (in British English), mile (in some dialects) • Nouns resitant to singular/plural contrast • Proper nouns • Some words ending in -s (news, physics, mumps, billiards, dominoes) • Noncount (mass) nouns - cheese, instability • Binary nouns - scissors, pants, trousers, glasses, binoculars, shorts • Aggregate nouns - people, cattle, clergy, police, offspring, series, barracks, committee (British English)

4. Gender • Generally not a significant grammatical distinction in English, except for with pronouns • Animals - Familiar animals often have a gender distinction and use male/female pronouns (e.g., horse/stallion/mare (he, she), but spider (it) • Gender with other nouns • Gendered nouns (bachelor, usherette, king, princess…) - he, she • Dual nouns (doctor, student, participant, customer) - he, she • Plural nouns - “he or she”, “they”

5. Common/Proper Nouns • Common Nouns do not refer to a specific person, place, event, or thing • E.g., shoe, house, day, car • Proper Nouns refer to specific person, place, event, or thing • E.g., Pat, the Queen, Chicago, Christmas, Lucille, General Motors • Do not usually follow articles: on (*the) Christmas Day, in (*the) Chicago, *the Shakespeare • Do not usually take plurals • Exceptions: • Referring to a real or imagined unique proper noun: “the Christmas of 1942”, “Are you the Howard Dean?”, “That’s not the Chicago I remember.” • Certain place names: the Missippi River, the Great Lakes, the Rocky Mountains, the Atlantic Ocean, the White House • Certain institutions: the New York Times, the Lincoln Museum,

6. Count/Mass (Noncount) Nouns • Count Nouns are nouns that can be counted and take a plural • E.g., shoe, horse, boy, inconsistency, universe • Occur with “many” - “How many ____?”, “There were many ___” • Occur with “few” - “too few ____”, “We only have a few _____” • Mass Nouns (Noncount Nouns) are nouns that cannot be counted • E.g., sugar, water, rice, wheat, mud, milk, music, laziness • Occur with “much” - “How much __”, “There is much ____” • Occurs with “little” instead of “few”: “too little ____”, “We only have a little ____” • Occur with partitive constructions to indicate units - grain of sand/rice, cup of water/milk, piece of music/leather, clump of mud, blade of grass, slice of meat/pie, item of clothing • Some nouns can be both • E.g., pie, cake, brick, stone, love

7. Types of Nouns

8. Determiners • Articles – Definite (the), indefinite (a/an) • Demonstratives – this, these, that, those • Possessives – my, our, your… • Indefinites (Quantifiers) – some, any, no, every, other, another, many, more, most, enough, few, less, much, either, neither, several, all, both, each, half… • Cardinal Numbers – one, two, three, four… • Ordinal Numbers – first, second, third…

9. Definite and Indefinite Articles • Definite Article – the • Refers to something predictable • E.g., from a the narrative context – Once upon a time there was a king…Now the king had three daughters. • E.g., from the cultural context – What do you think of the President?; Do you watch the news on television? • E.g., from the situational context – We went to a restaurant and liked the menu (waiter, service, food, *teller, *nurse); We were in a house, in the dining room, when we heard a knock at the door. • Indefinite Articles – a/an, this (very informal) • Refer to something unpredictable • E.g., I met an interesting man; Once upon a time there was a king.; I know this man and he says…

10. Generic vs. Specific Reference • Specific refers to a specific person or thing • E.g., Look at that elephant; Yesterday I met a man. • Generic refers to any one of a group • Generic pronouns – one, they, you, s/he • Nouns can also have generic reference – A good man is hard to find; The bald eagle is back for near extinction. • Some sentences are ambiguous in terms of generic or specific reference – E.g., My sister wants to marry a rich man; The lion is dangerous.

11. Pronoun Types • Central • Personal – e.g., I, me, they, them • Reflexive – e.g., myself, themselves • Reciprocal – each other, one another • Possessive – e.g., my/mine, their/theirs • Relative – which, who, whose, whom, that • Interrogative – who, whom, which, whose, what • Demonstrative – this, these, that, those • Indefinite – e.g., both, each, nobody, everything

12. Personal Pronouns

13. Indefinite Pronouns