alytical practical grammar - Toronto Public Library

ETYMOLOGY-NOUNS. 19
NOUNS.
100. A NouN is the name of any person, place, or
thing; as, John, London, book. Hence,
The names of persons, places, or things, are Nouns.
101. Nouns are of two kinds, Propel' and Common.
102. A Proper Noun is the name applied to an individual
only; as John, London, America, the Ohio.
103. A Common Noun is a name applied to all things
of the same sort; as, man, chair, table, book.
104. REMARKs.-Proper nouns are used to distinguish individuals of the
same class from one another. Common nOllns distinguish sorts 01' classes,
and are equally Rp?licable to all things of the same class. Thus, the com·
mon noun boy is equally applicable to all object9 of that class; but the
proper nouns John, Jame8, Robert, &c., are applicable only to partIcular
indit·idual. of a class,
OBSERVATIONS ON NOUNS.
105. When a proper noun is used to denote a whole elMS, it becomes
common, and generally has an article before it; as," The twelve Ca:sars,"
.. He is the Cicero of his age," "A Daniel come to judgment." A Campbell,
i.e., one of the Campbells.
106. Common nouns become proper when perwnified (1041\ 1), and
also when used as proper names; as, Hail, Liberty! The Park.
107. Under common nouns are usually ranked,-
1. Collective nouns, or nouns of multitude, which signify many in the
singular number; as, army, people.
2. Abstract nouns, or names of qualities; as, piety, wickedness.
3. Verbal nouns, 01' the names of actions, &e.; as, reading, writing,
sleeping.
4. Diminutive nouns, or nouns derived Crom other nouns, and decoting
R small one of the kind; as, stream, streamlet; leaf, leaflet;
hill, hillock, &e.
108. To the class of nouns belongs everything, whether word, letter,
mark. or character, of which we can thin I" speak, or write, regarded
merely as an object of thought, even when, as sometimes happens, we do
not give it a name. Thus, when we ~ay, "Good" is an adjective, a is a
vowel, b is a consonant, A is a capital, 4 is an even number, t is a fraction,
, is a mark of interrogation, + is the sign of addition, - of subtraction,
= of equality-Good, 0, b, A, 4, t, Y, +, -, -, ure all to be
regarded as nouns.