English nouns form the largest category of words in English, both in the number of different words and how often they are used in typical texts. The three main categories of English nouns are common nouns, proper nouns, and pronouns. A defining feature of English nouns is their ability to inflect for number, as through the plural –s morpheme. English nouns primarily function as the heads of noun phrases, which prototypically function at the clause level as subjects, objects, and predicative complements. These phrases are the only English phrases whose structure includes determinatives and predeterminatives, which add abstract-specifying meaning such as definiteness and proximity. Like nouns in general, English nouns typically denote physical objects, but they also denote actions (e.g., get up and have a stretch), characteristics (e.g., this red is lovely), relations in space (e.g., closeness), and just about anything at all. Taken together, these features separate English nouns from other lexical categories such as adjectives and verbs.
In this article English nouns include English pronouns but not English determiners.
Subtypes English nouns are classified into three major subtypes: common nouns, proper nouns, and pronouns, each with its own typical syntactic behaviour.Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. A Student's Introduction to English Grammar. Cambridge UP, 2005. p. 84.
Proper nouns Proper nouns are a class of words such as December, Canada, Leah, and Johnson that occur within noun phrases (NPs) that are proper names,Aarts, Bas. Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford UP, 2011. p. 57. though not all proper names contain proper nouns (e.g., General Electric is a proper name with no proper noun). "The central cases of proper names", according to The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, "are expressions which have been conventionally adopted as the name of a particular entity."Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge UP, 2002. p. 515. A prominent category of proper names is of those assigned to particular people or animals (Elizabeth, Fido). Others include particular places (New Zealand, the United States of America) and institutions (Cambridge University, the United States Senate). While proper names may be realized by multi-word constituents, a proper noun is a word-level unit in English. Thus, Zealand, for example, is a proper noun, but New Zealand, though a proper name, is not a proper noun.Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge UP, 2002. pp. 515–516.
Unlike some common nouns, proper nouns do not typically show number contrast in English. Most proper nouns in English are singular and lack a plural form, though some may instead be plural and lack a singular form. For example, we typically expect Michigan but not *Michigans, and the Philippines but not *Philippine. Proper nouns also differ from common nouns in that they typically lack either a determinative or determinative contrast. For instance, we typically expect Michigan but not *a Michigan, and though the Bahamas includes the determinative the, the determinative cannot normally be varied (compare *a Bahama and *some Bahamas). Finally, proper nouns differ from common nouns in that they typically cannot be modified by restrictive modifiers.Quirk, Randolph, et al. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman, 1985. pp. 288–290.
In English, the features that distinguish proper nouns from common nouns do not necessarily apply in the rare situations in which proper nouns lack unique denotation. For example, London typically refers to a unique place, but someone trying to disambiguate between two places named London might pluralize it (Which of the Londons are you referring to?), add a determinative (Do you mean the London in Ontario?), or add a restrictive modifier (Do you mean the London in Ontario?).
Pronouns English pronouns are a closed category of words that have a variety of features distinguishing them from common and proper nouns. Unlike common nouns, pronouns are mostly deictic and anaphoric pro-forms. p. 425. In the clause I like you, for instance, I and you are deictic in that their meanings can only be understood in relation to the context of the utterance. In the clause Tell Anne I want to talk to her, on the other hand, her is anaphoric in that the pronoun derives its meaning from its antecedent (Anne).
Also unlike common nouns, English pronouns show distinctions in case (e.g., I, me, mine), person (e.g., I, you) and gender (e.g., he, she). Though both common nouns and pronouns show number distinction in English, they do so differently: common nouns tend to take an inflectional ending (–s) to mark plurals, but pronouns typically do not. (The pronoun one is an exception, as in I like those ones.) English pronouns are also more limited than common nouns in their ability to take dependents. For instance, while common nouns can often be preceded by a determinative (e.g., the car), pronouns cannot.
In English conversation, pronouns are roughly as frequent as other nouns. In fiction, pronouns are about one third of all nouns, and in news and academic English, less than ten percent of nouns.Biber, Douglas. Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Longman, 2011. p. 235.
Common nouns Common nouns are defined as those that are neither proper nouns nor pronouns. They are the most numerous and the most frequently used in English.
Common nouns can be further divided into count and non-count nouns. A count noun can take a number as its determiner (e.g., -20 degrees, zero calories, one cat, two bananas, 276 dollars). These nouns tend to designate individually identifiable entities, whereas a non-count noun designates a continuum or an undifferentiated mass (air, cheese, lots of gravel some water, enough heat).Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge UP, 2002. p. 343. The count and non-count distinction also affects what other determiners can occur with the nouns: singular count nouns can occur with a but not some (e.g., a chair but not usually *some chair) while non-count nouns can occur with some but not a (e.g., some furniture but not *a furniture). p. 246. Many common nouns have both count and non-count senses. For example, beer has a non-count sense in she was drinking beer but a count sense in she drank another beer.Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge UP, 2002. pp. 334–340.
Morphology
Inflection A defining property of English nouns is their ability to inflect for number (i.e., singular or plural).Aarts, Bas. Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford UP, 2011. pp. 42–44. In addition to number, English pronouns can inflect for case, a feature shared by some NPs (see the discussion of case below) but not common nouns themselves.Lobeck, Anne, and Kristin Denham. Navigating English Grammar. Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. pp. 31–32.
Common nouns Common nouns in English have little inflectional morphology, inflecting only for number. In modern English writing, the plural is usually formed with the –s morpheme, which can be realized phonetically as /s/, /z/, or /əz/. For example, the singular nouns cat, dog, and bush are pluralized as cats (s = /s/), dogs (s = /z/), and bushes (es = /əz/), respectively. Irregularly, English nouns are marked as plural in other ways, often inheriting the plural morphology of older forms of English or the languages that they are borrowed from. Plural forms from Old English resulted from vowel mutation (e.g., foot/feet), adding –en (e.g., ox/oxen), or making no change at all (e.g., this sheep/those sheep). English has also borrowed the plural forms of loanwords from various languages, such as Latin (e.g., stimulus/stimuli) and Greek (e.g., criterion/criteria).Lobeck, Anne, and Kristin Denham. Navigating English Grammar. Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. pp. 30–31.
Some varieties of English use different methods of marking the plural, many of which fall into one of three patterns. First, the plural morpheme may be absent when another word already indicates that the noun is plural. In the clause two girl just left, for instance, speakers of some varieties would not use the plural morpheme on the noun girl because the determiner two already marks the noun phrase as plural. Dem, which is derived from them, is often used without the plural morpheme, as in dem book (rather than dem books). This method of plural marking occurs in Gullah and Caribbean English among other varieties. Second, the plural morpheme may be absent specifically in noun phrases denoting weights and measures but not in other situations. Thus, some varieties may produce noun phrases like ten mile (rather than ten miles) while still using the plural morpheme in other contexts (e.g., two girls). This method of plural marking for weights and measures occurs in certain rural varieties of Southern U.S. English. Third, irregular plural nouns may be regularized and use the –s morpheme. This may happen when the plural is not otherwise marked (e.g., sheeps for sheep), when the plural is typically marked with a morpheme other than –s (e.g., oxes for oxen), or when the plural is typically formed through vowel mutation (e.g., foots for feet). For plurals marked by vowel mutation, some varieties may double mark the plural (e.g., feets). Regularization of plural marking occurs in several Englishes, including African-American English.Katz, Seth R. American English Grammar. Routledge, 2020. pp. 30–32.
Traditional grammars suggest that English nouns can also take genitive case endings, as in the –'s in the cat's paws. Grammars informed by modern linguistics, however, analyze this ending as applying to entire noun phrases rather than the nouns themselves. In the phrase the cat with brown fur's paws, for example, the possessor is realized by the entire noun phrase the cat with brown fur, not just the noun fur. This analysis can be illustrated in bracketed notation:
[NP [NP the cat]'s paws] [NP [NP the cat with brown fur]'s paws]
Pronouns
Those types that are indisputably pronouns are the personal pronouns, relative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, and reciprocal pronouns. The following table presents the Modern Standard English pronouns (for pronouns in other dialects, see the main article on English pronouns). Nominative case is usually used for subjects (e.g., I went) and accusative for objects (e.g., Help me). Reflexives are typically objects when the subject and object are the same person or people. Genitives are used for possession, belonging, sources, ancestry, etc. The independent genitive typically forms a noun phrase all on its own (e.g., Mine works), while the dependent genitive usually occurs together with a head noun on which it depends (e.g., [My copy] works.). NominativeAccusativeReflexiveIndependentgenitiveDependentgenitiveFirstpersonSingularImemyselfminemyPluralweusourselvesoursourSecondpersonSingularyouyouyourselfyoursyourPluralyouyouyourselvesyoursyourThirdpersonSingularMasculinehehimhimselfhishisFemininesheherherselfhersherNeuteritititselfits†itsEpicenetheythemthemselves/themselftheirstheirPluraltheythemthemselvestheirstheirIndefinite (Generic)oneoneoneselfone'sWh-formRelative &interrogativePersonalwhowhomwhose††whoseNon-personalwhatwhatwhichwhichReciprocaleach other/one anothereach other's/one another'seach other's/one another'sDummythereit † Rare. †† Interrogative only (e.g., Whose is this?). Relative whose is not possible (e.g.,*This is Kim's, whose we forgot).
Derivational (for common nouns)