HEK 215

Nouns
Characteristics of Nouns

 Nouns are lexical words that carry information in a text.

 They have inflectional suffixes for plural number, and for genitive
case.
E.g., a book books (plural)
Sarah’s book (genitive)
 Many nouns can be identified by their characteristic endings:
E.g., -ence, -ment and -tion
 Singular/plural
❑ Regular/irregular
Characteristics of Nouns (Cont.)

 Nouns can be countable/uncountable

❑ Divisible/indivisible
 They refer to both concrete and
abstract entities like cars and love.
 What examples come to mind?
Exercise

 Find common/proper nouns

 KOTA BARU: Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has
once again obtained assistance from a team of surgeons
specializing in heart surgery involving children from the
United Kingdom to operate on 10 children at Hospital
USM (HUSM) Kubang Kerianhere.
 HUSM deputy senior director (Clinical) Dr. Nik Min
Ahmad said the arrival of the team was a continuation of
the same programme started in 2015 which is fully
borne by the ‘Healing Little Hearts’ (HLH) Foundation.
Characteristics of Nouns (Cont.)

 Nouns do not have grammatical gender but may refer

semantically to male or female entities
e.g. The tiger/the tigress
 In French
Genitive Nouns

 Genitive nouns denote possession

 Formed by ’s
 Dependent genitive followed by a noun
 Independent genitive not followed by a
noun
 E.g., Caroline’s friend/ a friend of Caroline’s
Pronouns
A pronoun takes the place of a noun.
 Personal pronouns
▪ refer to the speaker, the addressee(s), or other entities.
▪ Their forms vary in:
➢ number (singular/ plural), e.g. he, they
➢ person (1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person), e.g., I, you, he
➢ case (nominative, accusative and possessive), e.g., she,
her, hers, and
➢ gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), e.g. he, she, it
How about personal pronouns in other languages?
Pronouns (Cont.)
 Demonstrative Pronouns
▪ represent things that are near to or far from the speaker’s context,
e.g., I’m interested in this (v I’m interested in this book).
 Reflexive pronouns
▪ usually refer back to the subject of the sentence or clause.
e.g., He seated himself in a chair.
 Reciprocal pronouns
▪ express mutual action or relationship.
e.g., They always help each other.
Pronouns (Cont.)
 Possessive pronouns
▪ closely connected with possessive determiners and
demonstrate ownership.
e.g., Is this yours? (v Is this your book?)
 Indefinite pronouns
▪ refer to unspecified beings or things.
e.g., everybody (quantifier + general noun), many
(quantifier)
Pronouns (Cont.)
 Relative pronouns
▪ typically introduce relative clauses.
e.g., He’s a person that/who/whom everyone
trusts.
 Interrogative pronouns
▪ used to ask about people and objects.
e.g. Which do you prefer most?