NOUNS.

1. In the more simple state of the Arabs, the nation is free, because each of her sons disdains a base submission to the will of a master. - GIBBON.

By examining this sentence we notice several Name words. words used as names. The plainest name is Arabs, which belongs to a people; but, besides this one, the words sons and master name objects, and may belong to any of those objects. The words state, submission, and will are evidently names of a different kind, as they stand for ideas, not objects; and the word nation stands for a whole group.

When the meaning of each of these words has once been understood, the word naming it will always call up the thing or idea itself. Such words are called nouns.

2. A noun is a name word, representing directly Definition. to the mind an object, substance, or idea.

3. Nouns are classified as follows:·

Classes of

Names for special objects.

4. A proper noun is a name applied to a particular object, whether person, place, or thing.

It specializes or limits the thing to which it is applied, reducing it to a narrow application. Thus, city is a word applied to any one of its kind; but Chicago names one city, and fixes the attention upon that particular city. King may be applied to any ruler of a kingdom, but Alfred the Great is the name of one king only.

The word proper is from a Latin word meaning limited, belonging to one. This does not imply, however, that a proper name can be applied to only one object, but that each time such a name is applied it is fixed or proper to that object. Even if there are several Bostons or Manchesters, the name of each is an individual or proper name.

Name for 5. A common noun is a name possessed by any any individual of a class. one of a class of persons, animals, or things.

Name for a group or collection of objects.

Common, as here used, is from a Latin word which means general, possessed by all.

For instance, road is a word that names any highway outside of cities; wagon is a term that names any vehicle of a certain kind used for hauling: the words are of the widest application. We may say, the man here, or the man in front of you, but the word man is here hedged in by other words or word groups: the name itself is of general application.

Besides considering persons, animals, and things separately, we may think of them in groups, and give appropriate names to the groups.

Thus, men in groups may be called a crowd, or a mob, a committee, or a council, or a congress, etc. These are called COLLECTIVE NOUNS. They properly belong under common nouns, because each group is considered as a unit, and the name applied to it belongs to any group of its class.

nouns Names for things

It may, how- thought of in

6. The definition given for common applies more strictly to class nouns. ever, be correctly used for another group of nouns detailed below; for they are common nouns in the sense that the names apply to every particle of similar substance, instead of to each individual or separate object.

They are called MATERIAL NOUNS. Such are glass, iron, clay, frost, rain, snow, wheat, wine, tea, sugar, etc.

They may be placed in groups as follows:

(1) The metals: iron, gold, platinum, etc. (2) Products spoken of in bulk: tea, sugar, rice, wheat, etc.

(3) Geological bodies: mud, sand, granite, rock, stone, etc.

(4) Natural phenomena: rain, dew, cloud, frost, mist, etc.

(5) Various manufactures: cloth (and the different kinds of cloth), potash, soap, rubber, paint, celluloid, etc.

7. NOTE.

There are some nouns, such as sun, moon, earth, which seem to be the names of particular individual objects, but which are not called proper names.

mass.

Words naturally of limited application not proper.

Names of ideas, not things.

Attribute abstract

nouns.

The reason is, that in proper names the intention is to exclude all other individuals of the same class, and fasten a special name to the object considered, as in calling a city Cincinnati; but in the words sun, earth, etc., there is no such intention. If several bodies like the center of our solar system are known, they also are called suns by a natural extension of the term: so with the words earth, world, etc. They remain common class names.

8. Abstract nouns are names of qualities, conditions, or actions, considered abstractly, or apart from their natural connection.

When we speak of a wise man, we recognize in him an attribute or quality. If we wish to think simply of that quality without describing the person, we speak of the wisdom of the man. The quality is still there as much as before, but it is taken merely as a name. So poverty would express the condition of a poor person; proof means the act of proving, or that which shows a thing has been proved; and so on.

Again, we may say, "Painting is a fine art," "Learning is hard to acquire," "a man of understanding."

9. There are two chief divisions of abstract

nouns:

(1) ATTRIBUTE NOUNS, expressing attributes or qualities.

(2) VERBAL NOUNS, expressing state, condition, or action.

10. The ATTRIBUTE ABSTRACT NOUNS are derived from adjectives and from common nouns.

Thus,