A noun is one of the eight parts of speech that are fundamental to learning English. Imagine if there were no nouns. How would you identify your friends or pets? How would you convey an idea to someone? How would you show your feelings to your loved ones? By using nouns you can name people, objects, animals, places, events, quantities and countries and you can also convey feelings and ideas.
In English we use the eight parts of speech in a manner that is understandable to everyone and one of the important elements of this is the interrelationship between the eight parts of speech. By themselves the eight parts of speech have different characteristics and each has a role to play. One of the fundamental structures of English is the sentence.
A sentence is said to be incomplete if it does not contain a noun and a verb. The noun defines the subject and the verb defines the action of the noun. The noun has many roles to play in English and it can be the main word or the object on which an action as defined by the verb takes place. For instance ‘the TIGER attacked the MAN’ is a sentence in which TIGER and MAN are nouns.
Another property of the noun is its usage with other parts of speech. An article can be used before a noun as in ‘the tiger’ or ‘a tiger.’ You cannot use an article before a verb as in ‘a drove’ or ‘the drove.’ The noun combines differently with other parts of speech and there are definite rules and conventions to be followed while using nouns.
The noun forms a fundamental unit of communication and, in line with its importance, is classified into many types. In this quiz you will learn to identify the nouns from other parts of speech and in subsequent quizzes you will learn the different types. Have fun!