Nouns 9th grade unit 1

A word about grammar: Learning grammar isn’t a punishment. You all should have a basic understanding of how your language works. Every word in a sentence has a particular job or function. Learning those functions creates a basis for understanding how words work together to create meaning.

All words can be classified as one of eight parts of speech All words can be classified as one of eight parts of speech. The part of speech is dictated by how the word is used in a sentence.

Nouns: A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, or idea. However, not all words that name people, places, and things are nouns. Again, it depends on function. We can look back on yesterday and smile. Yesterday, I went to the park. *Don’t worry. I won’t try to trick you.

Nouns can be divided into additional subcategories: concrete or abstract; common or proper; compound; collective. Abstract nouns name ideas and concepts. We sometimes miss these in sentences because they aren’t tangible (we can see, touch, taste, hear, or smell them).

The distinction between common and proper nouns is more important because it has usage implications. In other words, we capitalize proper nouns regardless of where they’re located in a sentence. We only capitalize common nouns if they begin a sentence.

Common nouns name a general person, place, or thing. Proper nouns name a particular person, place, or thing. girl, city, building, team.

Compound nouns are nouns made up of more than one word Compound nouns are nouns made up of more than one word. Sometimes the compound noun is squished together like “football”. Other times the compound noun is separated (remember there’s a rat in separate) like high school, Attorney General, or Mother-in-law. Be careful making some compound nouns plural: Attorney General = Attorneys General; mother-in-law = mothers-in-law.

Collective nouns refer to a single noun that names a group of individuals. Don’t get confused with plurals. Examples are team, army, and swarm. Students is not collective because the singular form, student, doesn’t refer to a group.