1. The definition of the noun.

Nouns make up the largest class of words in most languages, including English.
A noun is a word that refers to a thing (book), a person (Noah Webster), an
animal (cat), a place (Omaha), a quality (softness), an idea (justice), or an
action (yodeling). It's usually a single word, but not always: cake, shoes, school
bus, and time and a half are all nouns.
There are a number of different categories of nouns.
2. Classes of nouns.
Proper nouns and common nouns
A first major distinction among nouns is that between proper nouns and common
nouns. Simply put, proper nouns are nouns that functions as names of people,
cities, countries, etc. Typical examples are: Bill, Stockholm, and Denmark. All
other nouns are common nouns, e.g. car, water, and democracy. The distinction is
relevant to capitalisation. Thus, proper nouns always start with a capital letter.
More on capitalisation
Since proper nouns are used to refer to unique individuals, places, and so on, they
do not show a distinction between definite and indefinite forms, which for
common nouns is signalled by the definite and indefinite articles. Most proper
nouns occur without an article, like Sweden, Lund, Bill, etc. However, there are
also classes of poper nouns which have a definite article as part of their name.
Examples include names of daily newspapers (The Times, the Observer, etc.),
names of theatres, museums, hotels, restaurants, and similar establishments (the
Metropolitan, the British Museum, the Hilton, the Ritz, etc. If the name of such an
establishment consists of a noun or noun phase in the genitive, then even these
proper nouns occur without an article (McDonald's, Sloppy Joe's). Proper nouns in
the plural form another important class that occur with the definite article. Typical
examples include names of mountain ranges (the Himalayas), groups of islands
(The Canaries), and others (the Midlands, the Neherlands, the Balkans).
Countable and uncountable nouns
Common nouns may be divided into countable and uncountable nouns. As the
terminology suggests, countable nouns can combine with numerals like one, two,
three, etc., whereas uncountable nouns cannot. Moreover, uncountable nouns are
always singular, whereas most countable nouns may be either singular or plural. A
number of properties related to this basic difference distinguish the two classes of
nouns. The following table lists the most important ones, and provides examples of
both types of noun. (The asterisk * marks an example as ungrammatical.)
countable nouns uncountable nouns
accept the indefinite article:
a car, a house, an accident, etc.

do not accept the indefinite article:

*a money, *an evidence, *a knowledge, etc.
typically have a plural form:
car - cars, house - houses, accident - accidents

have no plural form:

money - *moneys, evidence - *evidences, nonsense - *nonsenses
can, and sometimes must, be replaced by the pronoun one:
I sold my old car and bought a new one.

cannot be replaced by the pronoun one:

*Bill prefers empirical evidence to anecdotal one.

in the plural, combine with plural quantifiers like many, a great number of, etc.:
many cars, a great number of houses only combine with singular quantifiers like
much, a great deal of, etc.:
much evidence, a great deal of money
Partitive constructions
Uncountable/Countable nouns
Inherently plural nouns
Some nouns are such that they cannot be used in the singular, that is, they are
always regarded as denoting something plural, and they always take plural
agreement. Important members of this category appear in the following examples:
(4) My new jeans are Italian. (5) We have to buy Peter new pyjamas, since his old
ones are worn out. (6) In this experiment, headphones are to be used. (7) The ship's
doctor made use of tweezers to remove the foreign object. (8) The minutes were
kept by Sheila. (9) The goods have been exported to Germany. (10) All our
valuables have been stolen. (11) The police are investigating the case. (12) There
were hundreds of police present in Stockholm in connection with the royal
wedding.
(13) Do you know how many people are here? (14) The cattle were seen grazing in
the field. (15) We do not want vermin in our house, but they are here anyway.
Inherent plurals
Nouns in -ics
Nouns that end in -ics look plural, but are actually most often treated as singular.
Thus, when heading a noun phrase which functions as the subject, they trigger
singular agreement on the verb.
(16) Statistics is becoming increasingly popular among our students. (17)
Mathematics is an integral part of our culture. (18) Western economics has tended
not to be influenced by theories from other parts of the world.
In the examples above, the nouns in -ics denote academic disciplines. However,
some of these nouns may also be used to denote the practical application of the
discipline, and are then treated as ordinary plurals, e.g. by taking plural
determiners and by triggering plural agreement on the verb.
(19) These statistics show that our production of beef has almost doubled. (20) The
acoustics of the new concert hall are very lively.
Zero plurals
Zero plural nouns are nouns that look the same in the plural as they do in the
singular. A well-known example is the noun sheep. Since sheep is a zero plural
noun, it looks the same in the two sentences below. However, this does not prevent
it from being singular in the first sentence and plural in the second one, as
indicated by the different verb forms, is and are:
(21) My sheep is black. (22) My sheep are black.
Other nouns that belong to this category are aircraft, Chinese, deer, elk,
headquarters, horsepower, hovercraft, means, offspring, Portuguese, salmon, series,
species, trout, and Vietnamese. When in doubt, please consult a good dictionary.
Foreign plurals
There is a group of nouns whose members are commonly referred to as 'foreign
plurals'. What the nouns in this group have in common is that both their singular
and their plural forms have been borrowed from other languages, which means that
the plural ending is not the regular English -s, but something else. Examples of
such foreign plural nouns that are important to remember, especially when writing
academic texts (since many of these words tend to be academic in nature), are
analysis-analyses, basis-bases, criterion-criteria, diagnosis-diagnoses, hypothesis-
hypotheses, parenthesis-parentheses, phenomenon-phenomena, stimulus-stimuli,
and thesis-theses. What usually happens when a word is borrowed into English (or
into some other language) is that it is changed in line with the morphology of the
language into which it has been borrowed. Consequently, there are some foreign
words in English that have both a foreign and an English plural form. Examples
include appendix-appendixes/appendices, cactus-cactuses/cacti, focus-focuses/foci,
and index-indexes/indices. A couple of etymologically plural nouns are sometimes
used as (uncountable) singulars. The two most common examples are media and
data. The singular uses are not universally accepted, however, so non-native
writers are well-advised to use them as plurals in examples like the following:
(23) These data show that our initial assumption was right. (24) The media have
become more interested in environmental issues.
3. The category of number:
1. the system of opposemes
The category of case of nouns is the system of opposemes (such
as girl - girl's in English, xama - xamu - xami - хату - хатою -
(на) xami - xamo in Ukrainian) showing the relations of a noun to other words
in speech. Case relations reflect the relations of the substances the nouns name
to other substances, actions, states, etc. in the world of reality. Case is the
grammatical form of a noun, which reveals its relation towards other words
fulfilling the functions of
parts of the given sentence (Вщмшок - це граматична форма
(менника, яка передав його вадношення до шших ошв, що
виступають у функци члешв цього речения).
Case is one of those categories which show the close connection
(a) between language and speech, (b) between morphology and
syntax:
a) A case opposeme is, like any other opposeme, a unit of the language system,
but the essential difference between the members of a case opposeme is in their
combinability in speech. This is particularly clear in a language like Ukrainian
with a developed case system. Compare, for instance, the combinability of the
nominative case and that of the oblique/indirect cases. See also the difference in
the combinability of each oblique case (непрямий ввдшнок): схвалювати
вчинок, не схвалювати вчинку, дивуватися вчинку/вчинков1,
захоплюватисъ вчинком, etc.
We can see here that the difference between the cases is not so much a matter of
meaning as a matter of combinability. It can be said that вчинок - вчинку -
вчинков1 - вчинком, etc. are united paradigmatically in the Ukrainian language
on the basis of their syntagmatic differences in speech. The same is true for the
English case opposeme.
b) Though case is a morphological category it has distinct syntactical
significance. The common case grammemes fulfill a number of syntactical
functions not typical of possessive case
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grammemes, among them the functions of subject and object. The possessive
case noun is for the most part employed as an attribute.
All case opposemes are identical in content: they contain two particular
meanings, of "common case" and "possessive case" united by the general
meaning of the category, that of "case". There is not much variety in the form of
case opposemes either, which distinguishes English from Ukrainian.
An English noun lexeme may contain two case opposemes at
most (man - man's, men - men's). Some lexemes have but one
opposeme (England - England's, cattle - cattle's). Many lexemes have no case
opposemes at all (book, news, foliage). That is not true for the Ukrainian
language.
Thus, - 's is the only positive case morpheme of English nouns. It would be no
exaggeration to say that the whole category depends on this morpheme [24; 59-
61]. This can be explained by the fact that in English the category of case is the
remnants of the former inflexional structure and is represented by a rather small
number of forms. The linguistic literature abounds in discussions concerning
the existence of the case categoiy in the sphere of the English noun as well as
concerning the system of its case forms. Nevertheless, traditional school
grammars express the view that modern English has two noun cases: the
Common Case (загальний вщмшок) and the Possessive Case (присвшний
вцгшнок, школи називають родовий).
The common case - is the form in which the English noun can fulfill functions
of almost all parts of a sentence. It is by itself the pure base (вш являе собою
"чисту основу") of the word without endings (or otherwise the base with the
"zero ending"). Since the common case of nouns performs a big number of
functions and is poor in its morphological expression (бщшсть
морфолопчного оформления), its meaning can be clarified by syntactic
means: the word order and the usage of prepositions. Merely judging from the
fact that the noun stands before the verb-predicate we perceive it as a subject,
and when it stands after the verb - as an object or the nominal part of the
compound predicate (depending on the type of the verb).
The possessive case has a very narrow sphere of usage: the noun in this case
fulfills the function of only one part of the sentence -the attribute, thus only
such a kind of attribute which expresses the
65
belonging or the size (приналежнють чи po3Mip). It is expressed by only one
ending -s. The separate form of the possessive case exists practically only in the
singular. In the plural only a few nouns have the possessive case. These are
nouns that do not have the ending -s, e.g.: children's. The rest of nouns do not
have a separate form of the possessive case in the plural. Usually the idea of
possession is expressed by placing the form of the common case plural before
the modified noun, as it happens while using the noun in the attributive
function. The usage of apostrophe is a mere formality and does not belong to
the language facts. Compare, e.g.: student's society (студентсъке
товариство/ товариство cmydeumie) and Brains Trust (мозковий трест/
трест мгзкгв, тобто об 'еднання людей видатних розумових здгбностей).
The range of meaning of the possessive case is incomparably narrower than that
of the common case. Yet linguists point out a number of meanings a "possessive
case" noun may express in speech:
1. possession, belonging (Peter's bicycle);
2. personal or social relations (Peter's wife);
3. authorship (Peter'spoem);
4. origin or source (the sun's rays);
5. kind or species (ladies' hats);
6. the relation of the whole to its part (Peter's hand);
7. subjective relations (Peter's arrival);
8. objective relations (Peter's being sent);
9. characteristic (her mother's care);
10) measure (a night's reflection; a mile's distance) [24; 70]. Not all the nouns
in English have the possessive case. Only the
names of living beings and the names of lifeless/inanimate objects, meaning the
size: the time interval (промгжок часу) (a week's leave -тижнева
в1дпустка), the distance (a mile's distance - eidcmaub в одну милю), the
weight (a ton's weight - вага в одну тону), the cost (a dollar's
worth - варткть в один долар). The names of countries, cities and ships as
well as the words: world, country, city, ship, also have the form of the
possessive case. Sometimes there can be met the possessive case of some other
inanimate objects with the meaning the
66
ielation of the whole to its part: the car's lights, the chair's arm etc. 11ic
majority of English nouns is used in the common case that is in fact it is
indeclinable.
The English possessive case has two main usages: a) the dependent possessive
case (залежний присвшний вщмшок), which ;ilways fulfills the function of
the attribute and the b) independent possessive case, which is used
independently without the noun that follows it (very often these nouns could be
the words: house, office, shop, e.g.: at my friend's, to the baker's (до крамнищ
булочника).
The dependent possessive case usually renders the meaning of belonging to
something (the doctor's house), the meaning of size or of I he relation of the
whole to its part (the girl's hand); sometimes it can have the subjective
meaning regarding the word modified (John's activity, my brother's arrival) or
in some cases the objective one (Mike's trial - суд над Майком).
The independent possessive case has most frequently the meaning of place (at
the chemist's) and very seldom the meaning of belonging (It is my uncle's).
A very specific feature of English is the so-called group possessive
case (груповий присвшний), when the ending of the possessive case serves
not for one word but for a word combination, e.g.: Peter and Helen's flat,
Prime Minister of England's residence, somebody else's book. Some linguists
think that this happens due to the analytic character of the English language
where very often a group of words can acquire characteristics of the complex
word.
The peculiarity of the English possessive case is that it is usually placed before
the noun whereas the Ukrainian attribute in the genitive case is usually placed
after the noun. Also the English possessive case corresponds not only to the
form of Ukrainian genitive case (зошит студента, день в1дпочинку) but also
to the form of Ukrainian possessive adjectives (батътв капелюх, братова
книжка).
In Ukrainian the noun has a very complicated system of declension (система
вщмшювання). This system consists of six cases: the nominative case,
the genitive case, the dative case, the accusative case, the instrumental case and
the local or locative case.
67
Besides, all the nouns that are the names of living beings and the names of
lifeless objects, used in the transferred meaning or personified, have the seventh
case - the so-called vocative form (клична форма), which is used at
addressing: брате, земле. This system of declension is still more complicated
by the fact that some nouns in one and the same case can have different
endings. These endings can not be semantically differentiated, e.g.: у гаю,
у za'i, батьковг, батьку but sometimes they can somehow alter the meaning
of the word, e.g.: листопада (the month) and листопаду (the season of the
year).
In Ukrainian the category of case is purely grammatical. Case forms are the
means of connection of nouns with other words. Each case is the unity of form
and meaning.
The nominative case of the noun is called the direct case. The
term "direct" denotes the independence of the noun's usage from its
connection with other words. Its usage is very limited. The nominative
case performs the function of a subject (щцмет), being the logical
subject (суб'ект) in the sentence: "А Рось китла в кам 'яному ложГ
(Л. Костенко). In passive constructions it is used as an object {Туман
розгонився вгтрами по долит). It can also function as a nominative
part of a compound nominal predicate {Слава - зрадлива /?/'«) or as a
main member of the nominative sentence ("Заслання, салюта,
солдатчина ..." - (Л. Костенко)). Sometimes it can fulfill the
function of detached apposition (вщокремлена прикладка - Мтна
знайгила будинок, невеличкий гарненький котедж, захований
nodani eid вулицг).
The rest of cases are indirect, being used with prepositions or without them.
Indirect cases can be used as secondary parts of the sentence: the object,
different types of circumstances, sometimes attribute.
The genitive case has the following meanings:
- belonging to some person or thing {батъко Миколи, властивгстъ
цементу);
- objective relations {не dicmae nanepy);
- the part of the whole or its incompleteness {налити води, цех it/воду);
- circumstantial meanings: a) dates {1990 року); b) special
relations {наблизилисъ до ставу); с) time relations (протягом тижня); d)
cause relations (крикнув з переляку).
The dative case denotes a person for whom or because of whom a certain action
takes place (служтня народов!, npueim друговг); possession (пам
'ятник Ieanoei Франку); the subject of the action in I lie impersonal
sentence {Кому-кому, а йому ттъки цъого й треба було).
The accusative case has, first of all, the objective meaning (as a direct object
with transitive verbs) (передплатити пресу, вимкнути ceimno). Used as an
object in prepositional constructions it denotes the space as the direction of
movement (в "ixamu в л1с, стртяти в небо), also an object {дбати
про dimeu, кинути об землю).
The instrumental case abounds in meanings which can be the following:
 objective (копоти лопатою, мгрятиметром);
 circumstantial {ixamu дорогою, плисти морем);
 denoting the accomplice of the doer of some action (батъко з дочкою,
мати з немовлям);
- expressing the nominal part of the compound nominal predicate (стати
парубком, зробитися хмаркою);
- denoting the subject in one-member sentence (односкладне
речения) {гуртожиток заселено студентами).
The locative case is always used with a preposition. The most important
meanings are circumstantial (ходити по березг, говорити no щиростг), or
that of an object (кохатися в мистецтвг, гратися на почуттях); much
more rarely attributive meanings are used {баба no Mamepi, товариство по
духу).
The vocative case denotes the addressing to some person or personified object
or any creature {мамо, брате, лисичко, кицю; Поезге, сонце мое
оранжеве! (I. Драч)) [15; 121-122].
The mentioned above six cases have peculiar endings for all the nouns of the
Ukrainian language. According to the type of ending there are
differentiated four declensions of Ukrainian noun:
68
69
=
The first declension - includes nouns of the feminine gcntlei with the
nominative case singular ending - а, -я (наука, земля), ami some group of
nouns of the masculine gender and the common спив (стльного
роду) (Микола, 1лля, голова, суддя).
The second declension - includes the biggest part of noun:. i)| the masculine and
the neuter gender. Only those nouns of llie masculine gender which have the
final hard consonant or solicited consonant and those having the ending -й, -
о (робгтник, ключ, Ociih, чай, батько) belong to this declension. Among the
neuter gcntlei nouns this declension includes all the nouns ending in -о, -е, н
(except those that acquire the suffixes -ят, -ен in indirect cases), Ihe latter
usually have the doubling of the final consonant of the si em (озеро, дерево,
поле, бажання, обличчя).
The third declension - includes all the nouns of the feminiiig gender with the
hard or the soft final consonant (тч, любое, iniiiu, радютъ) and the
noun маши, which in indirect cases acquires (lit; suffix -ep (jnamepi).
The fourth declension - includes the nouns of the neuter gentler with the
endings -а, -я, denoting the names of little according to Ihell age
creatures/beings or some minute things as well as the noun ш ч In indirect cases
these nouns have the suffix -ат, -ят and the noun гм'я has the suffix -
ен: теля — теляти, лоша — лошати, Ы'н гменг.
The peculiar feature in the system of declensions of modi ill Ukrainian nouns is
the dative case, which, being the analytical Ibim, creates the common paradigm
of the noun alongside with olhel synthetic forms. This case form always has a
preposition of place mi or в in its structure and a special form of a noun bound
with it.
Due to such richness of case endings the noun in Ukrainian I* always distinctly
expressed from the morphological point of view anil the meaning of its many
forms is easily determined even beyond I hi sentence limits, that is why the
importance of syntactic means in thl grammatical expression of the noun is not
a substantial one.
4. The category of gender
In Ukrainian all the nouns without exception, irrespective of the
lie!her they denote the living beings or lifeless objects belong
lording to their ending to one of three grammatical genders: the
.... vuliiic gender, the feminine gender or the neuter gender. In
|Ц|| in I'ttglish vice versa there is no division of nouns according to
grammatical gender on the basis of their morphological
II и letistics. As a consequence, the noun in modern English does
|Й llrtvt- Ihe grammar category of gender.
Though some linguists believe that the English noun has the
Ibllity (though quite a limited one) to express the category of
|)4Jei In particular, the means of expressing the gender is considered
1 lite ability of many nouns to correlate with some of personal
I'liuiins (he, she or it). Yu.O. Zhluktenko agrees with
Imirnits'kyj who pointed out that the choice of the pronoun in
h 1 ttNCS is wholly caused by the semantics of the noun, which is
■п. I iird with it, e.g.: the noun "brother" and the pronoun "Ae"
Wielrtli- between themselves not directly and not formally but
HI e i»l ihe fact that they both denote the person of the masculine
I hal is why, in such cases, we classify according to the gender
I |||i words as they are but the objects, denoted by corresponding
I I ("tit родом" класифгкуються не слова як там, а певною
iMi предмета, що позначаються вщповщними словами)
I]
Almost the only word building element that has the distinct
1 1 haracteristic is the noun suffix -ess, with the help of which we the nouns of
the feminine gender from nouns of the masculine • 1 host - hostess, poet -
poetess, tiger - tigress, actor — actress lupine the Ukrainian suffix -
к(а): лтар-ка, школяр-ка).
hi the rest of cases the fact of belonging to this or that sex is
■ 11 by the semantics of the word itself, as it can be observed
llnih in Ukrainian (cow корова, bull бик); or it can be rendered
1. iln help of adding of one of such words to the word, semantics of
ih It is not clear regarding its gender. As a result of such
1
■1 Million there appear compound words in the language of the
70
71
The first declension - includes nouns of the feminine gender with the
nominative case singular ending - а, -я (наука, земля), and some group of
nouns of the masculine gender and the common case (сшльного
роду) (Микола, 1лля, голова, суддя).
The second declension - includes the biggest part of nouns of the masculine and
the neuter gender. Only those nouns of the masculine gender which have the
final hard consonant or softened consonant and those having the ending -й, -
о (робтгник, ключ, день, чай, батъко) belong to this declension. Among the
neuter gender nouns this declension includes all the nouns ending in -о, -е, -я
(except those that acquire the suffixes -ят, -ен in indirect cases), the latter
usually have the doubling of the final consonant of the stem (озеро, дерево,
поле, бажання, обличчя).
The third declension - includes all the nouns of the feminine gender with the
hard or the soft final consonant (тч, любое, тть, радютъ) and the
noun мати, which in indirect cases acquires the suffix -ер (матерг).
The fourth declension - includes the nouns of the neuter gender with the
endings -а, -я, denoting the names of little according to their age
creatures/beings or some minute things as well as the noun гм 'я. In indirect
cases these nouns have the suffix -ат, -ят and the noun ж 'я has the suffix -
ен: теля - теляти, лоша - лошати, ж 'я -теш.
The peculiar feature in the system of declensions of modern Ukrainian nouns is
the dative case, which, being the analytical form, creates the common paradigm
of the noun alongside with other synthetic forms. This case form always has a
preposition of place на or в in its structure and a special form of a noun bound
with it.
Due to such richness of case endings the noun in Ukrainian is always distinctly
expressed from the morphological point of view and the meaning of its many
forms is easily determined even beyond the sentence limits, that is why the
 importance of syntactic means in the grammatical expression of the noun is not
a substantial one.
1. Double nature of the category of case.
The "double nature" of the category of case may refer to the fact that grammatical
case in language can serve both syntactic and semantic functions. Let's explore
these aspects:

1. **Syntactic Function:**
- In a syntactic sense, grammatical case helps indicate the relationship between
different elements in a sentence. For instance, it can show the subject, object, or
indirect object of a verb, helping to determine the sentence's structure.
- Examples include the nominative case for the subject, accusative case for the
direct object, and dative case for the indirect object in languages that use these
distinctions.

2. **Semantic Function:**
- Semantically, the case can convey additional information about the role or
function of a noun in a sentence. It might denote possession, source, destination,
instrumentality, and more.
- For instance, the genitive case is often associated with possession (e.g., "John's
car"), while the ablative case might indicate the source or cause of an action (e.g.,
"by the river").

So, the double nature of the category of case refers to its ability to convey both
syntactic information about sentence structure and semantic information about the
relationship and roles of the nouns involved. This duality makes grammatical case
a versatile and fundamental feature in many languages.
2. Declinable and indeclinable nouns.

In linguistics, nouns are often categorized as either declinable or indeclinable

based on their ability to undergo inflectional changes, particularly in terms of
grammatical case, number, and gender. Here's an explanation of these two types:

Declinable Nouns:

Definition: Declinable nouns are those that can undergo inflections, typically in the
form of changes in grammatical case, number, or gender.
Inflections: In languages with grammatical case systems, declinable nouns change
their form to reflect their syntactic or semantic role in a sentence. For example,
they might have different forms for the nominative, genitive, accusative, dative,
etc.
Examples: Many languages, such as Latin, Russian, and German, have declinable
nouns. In Latin, for instance, nouns can take different forms depending on their
grammatical case and number.
Indeclinable Nouns:

Definition: Indeclinable nouns, on the other hand, are those that do not change
their form based on grammatical case, number, or gender.
Lack of Inflections: In contrast to declinable nouns, indeclinable nouns maintain a
constant form regardless of their syntactic or semantic role in a sentence.
Examples: Some languages, especially those with a less complex system of
inflections, may have indeclinable nouns. In English, for instance, most nouns are
indeclinable, as they do not change form based on grammatical case.
It's important to note that the distinction between declinable and indeclinable
nouns depends on the grammatical features of a specific language. Not all
languages have a grammatical case system or exhibit inflection in the same way.
3. The peculiarities of the apostrophe s morpheme.
The apostrophe 's morpheme is commonly used in English to indicate possession
or ownership. Here are some peculiarities and rules associated with the apostrophe
's:

1. **Possessive Form:**
- The primary function of the apostrophe 's is to denote possession. It is added to
the end of a noun to show that something belongs to that noun.
- Examples:
- John's car
- The cat's tail

2. **Placement with Singular Nouns:**

- For singular nouns, the apostrophe 's is generally added to the end of the noun.
- Example: The girl's book

3. **Placement with Plural Nouns:**

- For most plural nouns, the apostrophe 's is added after the plural form of the
noun.
- Example: The dogs' toys (indicating that the toys belong to multiple dogs)

4. **Plural Nouns Ending in -s:**

- If a plural noun already ends in -s, the apostrophe 's is still added to indicate
possession.
- Example: The students' notebooks

5. **Plural Nouns Not Ending in -s:**

 - If a plural noun does not end in -s (irregular plural), the apostrophe 's is added.
- Example: The children's toys

6. **Possession with Proper Nouns:**

- Proper nouns, whether singular or plural, typically take the apostrophe 's to
indicate possession.
- Example: Mary's house, The Smiths' car

7. **Double Possession:**
- When indicating possession for a phrase that is already possessive, the
apostrophe 's is added only to the last noun.
- Example: My friend's brother's car (the car belonging to the brother of my
friend)

8. **It's vs. Its:**

- It's is a contraction of "it is" or "it has" and does not denote possession. On the
other hand, its (without an apostrophe) is the possessive form of the pronoun "it."
- Example: It's a beautiful day. (It is a beautiful day.) vs. The cat is licking its
paws.

Remember that proper usage of the apostrophe 's is essential for clear and
grammatically correct writing. Misplacement or omission can lead to confusion in
meaning.