Types of Nouns

(Woodward, n.d.)

Had you ever stopped to think how many types of nouns there are? There are, according to Oxford Dictionaries, seven: common nouns, proper nouns, concrete nouns, abstract nouns, collective nouns, countable or count nouns, and uncountable or mass nouns.

Woodward (n.d.) however, list eight nouns: common nouns, proper nouns, countable nouns, uncountable nouns, concrete nouns, abstract nouns, collective nouns... and compound nouns.

It is interesting that Oxford doesn't include compound nouns. Perhaps the clue is in the title: this category is made up of other, hyphenated nouns, so perhaps this construct is not worth a space in the typology.

Interestingly, when we stop to think about it, nouns can fall into several categories at once: for example, 'learning' falls under all of common, abstract and mass nouns. That is why we can't have 'learnings' <shudder>.

Woodward have some very useful games and visuals to help us learn parts of speech. The image on this post is a section from their noun typology. Check them out here. Not only is this site useful for international language learners, it is useful for native English speakers who need reminding of the parts of speech from time to time :-D


Sam

References:

• Oxford (n.d.). Types of noun. Retrieved 19 March 2018 from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/grammar/types-of-noun
• Woodward (n.d.). Type of Nouns in English. Retrieved 19 March 2018 from http://www.grammar.cl/english/nouns.htm