A proper or common noun can co-occur with an article or an attributive adjective. Verbs and adjectives can't. In the following, an asterisk (*) in front of an example means that this example is ungrammatical.
- the name (name is a noun: can co-occur with a definite article the.)
- *the baptize (baptize is a verb: cannot co-occur with a definite article.)
- constant circulation (circulation is a noun: can co-occur with the attributive adjective constant.)
- *constant circulate (circulate is a verb: cannot co-occur with the attributive adjective constant.)
- a fright (fright is a noun: can co-occur with the indefinite article a.)
- *an afraid (afraid is an adjective: cannot co-occur with the article a.)
- terrible fright (The noun fright can co-occur with the adjective terrible.)
- *terrible afraid (The adjective afraid cannot co-occur with the adjective terrible.)
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition.[1]
Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of expressions. The syntactic rules for nouns differ from language to language. In English, nouns may be defined as those words which can occur with articles and attributive adjectives and can function as the head of a noun phrase.
In traditional English grammar, the noun is one of the eight parts of speech.
Contents |
|
guardian.co.uk
... when used for, like, quoting), political correctness ("chairperson"), nouns as verbs ("critique"), irregular spellings ("inveigle") and much more. ...
