Talk:Noun

Collective noun example almost useful

I read the example "talked to each other"

Good: The boys talked to each other.

Bad: *The boy talked to each other.

Good: The committee talked to each other.

English is not my mother tongue, and I think the example would be even more useful if it used simple present: Is it "The committee talks to each other." or "The committee talk to each other."? —Preceding unsigned comment added by FrankyS (talk • contribs) 18:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Funnily enough I just tagged this as dubious (I hadn't read your comment). I'm a native BrE speaker and "the committee talked to each other" does not seem good English to me. 86.161.42.191 (talk) 22:05, 10 March 2009 (UTC).

I concur, 'The committee members talked to each other' would work; committee is a singular term, not a plural term 9Even though is is a term for a group of people). Saying 'The French talked to each other' or 'The athletes talked to each other' would work, as those are plurals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.30.48.42 (talk) 00:46, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

"The committee talked amongst themselves." would work, as would "The boys talked amongst themselves." Of course, "The boy talked amongst themselves." breaks the rule, which was the initial intention.

• I see this was changed to "The committee talked amongst themselves". I'm afraid that, to me, this is still not good English. OK, it would pass in many situations, but it feels awkward. To be correct, I would say "The members of the committee talked amongst themselves". I'm not sure if there are any AmE/BrE issues here. I'm a BrE speaker. 81.157.197.45 (talk) 03:23, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

• "The committee talked amongst themselves" is incorrect, as collective nouns become singular; therefore, "the members of the committee" is better suited for the situation, since the members would be the subject, and its plurality suits the entire sentence.

Correct: "The committee talked amongst itself."

Incorrect: "The committee talked amongst themselves."

Correct: "The members of the committee talked amongst themselves."

Incorrect: "The members of the committee talked amongst itself."

This sounds incorrect all together, however, as one thing does not talk amongst itself. "The committee discussed the situation," or something similar, is better in general. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ecvesta (talk • contribs) 22:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Other examples:

Correct: The class is noisy.

Incorrect: The class are noisy.

Correct: The group was quiet.

Incorrect: The group were quiet.

Correct: The staff is unsure.

Incorrect: The staff are unsure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ecvesta (talk • contribs) 22:04, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

In the English classes I took I seem to remember it being pointed-out that the name of a group can be used as a metonymic for the members of the group. So while it may seem strange, the original example was actually correct. "The committee talked among themselves" literally means that "The individual members of the committee talked among themselves." The former is a more succinct way of saying the later.

For another example of the metonymic substitution take the sentence "Congress went home at the end of term." Would you suggest that this means the entire body of congressmen (and congresswomen) got up as a single entity and then conveyed themselves as a unit to a single dwelling? Or would you, as intended, understand that the individual members of the congress left the building and that each then made her or her own way individually to their individual homes?

If you say that "The committee talked among themselves" is wrong because the committee is a single entity, then "congress went home" must have the first of the two meanings in my example. Don Denver (talk) 23:14, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• I don't believe the problem here is contemplating whether a collective noun is interpreted as a single entity nor it's individual constituents. The problem appears to be the conflict between a singular noun and a plural object. Although "Congress went home" is perfectly fine it does not reflect the nature of the problem as well as something along the lines of "Congress returned to their homes." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dalaru (talk • contribs) 02:15, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

The thinker - huh?!

" Rodin's The Thinker. Should we refer to this with a verb ("think", "ponder") or a noun ("thought", "thinker"), or an adjective ("pensive", "thoughtful")? In different contexts, any of these would do. This illustrates the problem with defining lexical categories in terms of what they refer to. "

What is this supposed to mean? Thinker is clearly not a verb, not an adjective. I propose we get rid of the picture and especially the caption. Thanks. 205.228.104.143 (talk) 09:04, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Same goes for the other idiotic "identity criteria" picture. Just because we can add images to articles doesn't mean that we have to. Let's just get rid of this, yes? 205.228.104.143 (talk) 09:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I've been bold, both are gone. 114.146.108.100 (talk) 21:35, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

"Prototypically referential"

The term "prototypically referential" ideally needs explaining in the article. It's also not very clear whether the section entitled "Prototypically referential expressions" is talking about the same theory as is explained in the last paragraph of "Predicates with identity criteria". Should these two sections be merged? 81.157.197.45 (talk) 03:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC).

Moved the heading & 1-line down ! Still don't know what "Prototypically referential" means, though. I suspect it's just his name for the 'same' thing as "identity criteria"! --195.137.93.171 (talk) 06:25, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Given the three definitions should be precisely functionally equivalent in practical applictions, you could even say that all three are merely different ways of expressing one and the same definition ?

In other words, that's precisely what a 'thing' is ! Occam's Razor applied to Linguistic relativity ? Ah, The Treachery of Images !

Thing links to Object_(philosophy) - seems to mean 'fact' or Postulate!

--195.137.93.171 (talk) 06:34, 6 April 2010 (UTC) Still a problem here: "Another semantic definition of nouns is that they are prototypically referential.[9]

Recently, Mark Baker[10] has proposed that Geach's definition of nouns in terms of identity criteria allows us to explain the characteristic properties of nouns. He argues that nouns can co-occur with (in-)definite articles and numerals, and are prototypically referential because they are all and only those parts of speech that provide identity criteria. Baker's proposals are quite new, and linguists are still evaluating them."

"He argues that nouns can co-occur with (in-)definite articles and numerals, and prototypically are referential because they only relate to those parts of speech that provide identity criteria."? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.177.242.71 (talk) 16:09, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Formal definition in header - circular argument ?

Paraphrasing (in words of one syllable !): "A noun is a word that you put where nouns go". Yes, but what is a noun? Begging the question ? --195.137.93.171 (talk) 07:01, 6 April 2010 (UTC) example:cat is noun —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.212.222.90 (talk) 09:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The formal definition is not really circular. Any grammar of English has to acknowledge that there's such a thing as a sentence, and that the most basic ones (simple declarative sentences) have a subject and a verb. The nouns are simply the category of words that are most common as subjects. They share other qualities too: they take the articles a/an and the; adjectives can modify them; they form possessives with ’s; many have plurals ending in -s or -es.

The traditional definition of a noun as "a word that names a person, place, thing, event or idea" has its problems, too. To get the right answers under that definition, you have to know that to stab does not denote an event; that day and night name events but today in I had a great time today does not; that the green in the green of the rushes names an idea (!) but the green in the green rushes does not; that propriety names an idea but proper does not; and that woman names a person but she does not. Honestly none of that makes much sense to me; I think something must be wrong with the traditional definition.

The heading of this article leaves much to be desired, though. It's really awful in fact. —Jorend (talk) 05:20, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

You know, it is strange, but when hearing of nouns and verbs in grade school I thought about the idea for a while and came up with a simplified definition - nouns described states of matter (or reading the example above maybe time) and verbs described states of energy - and left it at that. It helped me to memorize the list of seemly disconnected categories associated with each part of speech definition and I left it at that. Later on I looked it up in a web search to see if anyone else defined it that way and found that the simplified definition was part of a elementary lesson plan for Montessori schools. Seeing a lack of that simplified definition on wikipedia as well as using a few dictionary searches, however, I think that definition is not a very widespread standard. Language does not necessarily need to have any meaning, and the word 'noun' or 'verb' does not necessarily seem to me to be required to have any meaning beyond a circular definition either.75.164.236.3 (talk) 07:03, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm not totally sure I understand the simplified definition; a lot hinges on what "states of energy" are exactly. I sincerely have a hard time deciding if tornado, for example, is more about "matter" or "energy". Lots of words involving energy are nouns: energy itself, electricity, heat, tension, fire... Others are adjectives: hot, volatile, chemical, radioactive, lambent...

Also, I don't see how the simplified definition could handle cases where a word can be used as either a noun or a verb. Consider the sentence That was an incredible kick. Here kick is a noun. But is kick describing a state of matter in that sentence, and a state of energy in the sentence Watch me kick this can.? To me, it seems like they're describing the same kind of action in both cases. A great many verbs can also be nouns like this: fight, push, tour, throw, wink...

The simplified definition also sometimes gives answers that just seem wrong. For example: She did a cartwheel. His face reddened. Here cartwheel is a noun, and reddened is a verb. But cartwheel is about movement (energy) and reddened is about color (matter). Or: The stone weighed thirty pounds. Here weighed is clearly describing matter, but it's a verb. —Jorend (talk) 17:05, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Proper noun capitalization

We need to add more information about the capitalization of proper nouns. The proper nouns section should be moved to its own page if necessary. --86.169.102.32 (talk) 16:00, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

[It did get split off after this comment.] Quercus solaris (talk) 22:17, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Merger

I think that the articles linked to under the Classification section should be merged into this one. It would make this article much more comprehensive, which is important, given that the idea of a noun is universal to all human languages (communication and cognition, in general). The exception, I think, would be the mass/count noun articles; they should be merged into the quantization article, along with telicity. Then the quantization article can be linked to in the mass/count section of this article. 66.59.249.107 (talk) 22:06, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that mass and count should be merged into one article about (un)countability and countification. As for the proper noun section, it was already split off from this article because of its size (which is needed to cover the topic adequately). So I don't think there is any action to be taken in this article, but for the mass and count articles, yes. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:17, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Organization of Noun and Proper noun appears to be happy. I have taken down merge banners. --Kvng (talk) 15:01, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

no you havent its still tereEthanate1 (talk) 06:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Merg seems moot at this point. Banner has been removed.Planetary ChaosTalk 21:48, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Confusing sections

The sections titled "Predicates with identity criteria" and "Prototypically referential expressions" are quite meaningless. Is anyone who understands these theories able to write a more comprehensible explanation? If not, I think these sections should be removed or reduced to a "further reading" link - as they are they only serve to confuse and possibly scare off the reader (and there are far more essential and down-to-earth things we ought to be saying about nouns that the article as yet barely touches on - genders, cases, plurals and so on). Victor Yus (talk) 21:10, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Definition of "noun"

I suggest that it be more prominently displayed that the traditional definition of a noun as a "name of a person, place, or thing" is inadequate. (One fault is that it is a disjunctive definition, which is not the best, but I won't dwell on that.) The Jackendorff book cited in the article gives these examples of nouns which don't fit: ""earthquakes and concerts and wars, values and weights and costs, famines and droughts, redness and fairness, days and millennia, functions and purposes, craftsmanship, perfection, enjoyment, and finesse". Examples given by The syntax of natural language: An online introduction using the Trees program by Beatrice Santorini and Anthony Kroch "(unless the concept of thing is reduced to near-vacuity)": "explosion, glint, mind, moment, thunder, value". ISTM that there are better candidates, but I don't have reference, so I thought of these: "fit" (a perfect fit), miss (a near miss), separation, difference, excess, stealth, opportunity, smell, future, possibilities, folly, truth, and vacuity". I'm sure that some linguist must have done a better job.
 TomS TDotO (talk) 08:54, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

The definition of noun as defined in the concise OED is: a word (other than a pronoun) or group of words used to name or identify any of a class of persons, places, or things (common noun) or a particular one of these (proper noun). Is this of any help? Denisarona (talk) 11:22, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

@Denisarona: It helped me to laugh. "A group of words" ≠ noun. "A group of words" ≈ among other things, a compound, a phrase, a clause, or a sentence. Also, a noun isn't "used to name or identify" stuff. A noun constitutes stuff or is stuff. Now I'm crying for anyone who relies on such alf-hassed (my freshly minted spoonerism) lexicography as a reference for linguistic typology. This article's definition is minimally better than OED's. I'm resisting the urge to edit this article's definition because I'm heavily invested in my original sense for what a "noun" entails, and right now I'm unwilling to fling my definition into the public domain. Sorry, folks. --Kent Dominic 18:30, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

What I am really interested in a linguist's examples of (in English - or other languages) nouns which do not (in their opinion) meet the criterion of naming/identifying/referencing. I'm sure that they have come up some really bullet-proof examples. And I think that it merits at least a brief mention of how the traditional definition fails in such cases. TomS TDotO (talk) 12:44, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

After surfing, I came up with Reference 3.4 Non-Referring Expressions Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Reference", by Marga Reimer mentions "sake" (as in "for the sake of"), "behalf", "dint". wikt:dint seems a particularly good example. TomS TDotO (talk) 12:53, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Recent tag

This tag was recently added:

• {{improve|reason=Introduction contradicts examples. "noun (Latin: nomen [..])" and then just words like [a/the] cat, week etc., which in Latin is known as "[nomen] substantivum" and in English also known as "noun substantive" and "substantive" (maybe both English terms are dated).}}

Could the editor who added the tag explain here what the problem is? --Boson (talk) 22:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I removed the tag. It is something better discussed here first and the edit was by a single-edit IP editor. Bhny (talk) 00:36, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Irony?

   It's hard to say whether "in the Art of Grammar" could have been an attempt at irony, but it's a barbarism at best, since both Art of Grammar and The Art of Grammar are widely used.
--Jerzy•t 00:13, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

The voice of discontent

nouns refer to physical entities that can, in principle at least[clarification needed], be observed by at least one of the senses (for instance, chair, apple, Janet or atom). Abstract nouns, on the other hand, refer to abstract objects; that is, ideas or concepts (such as justice or hatred). While this distinction is sometimes exclusive, some nouns have multiple senses, including both concrete and abstract ones: consider, for example, the noun art, which usually refers to a concept (e.g., Art is an important element of human culture.) but which can refer to a specific artwork in certain contexts (e.g., I put my daughter's art up on the fridge.)

It is time to further elaborate the above definitions. We have got five senses with different scope and range of perception. Accordingly, our perception of the concrete depends on our distance from what we call a concrete object. If it is too distant, hence out of the scope of our perceptional range, such an object may be called unknown, non-existent or abstract. Now normally, touch, smell, taste, hear and see differ in that respect, because once you are hooked up to one of the sensations, you need to move out of the source of that stimulus to get rid of its impact. As you do so, the strength of the stimuli decreases and finally diminishes. It is also our capability to focus on one source of stimuli and by doing so we get and become conscious of "loud and clear" input. But the brain seems to process signals that come from the environment only a part of which is in focus, the rest is out of focus and is a kind of holographic imprint that may or may not be processed unconsciously. Broken input may be complemented just as opposites are also sensed due to the search for contrast that enables resolution and focusing. Clearly, since you are normally in control of directing your sensors to certain directions, it is up to you to decide whether something is concrete or abstract or what extent, since the two qualities are not opposites but the two extremes of a range of your sensory input evaluation. This is illustrated by the wording of Chomsky's abstract concrete ladder example of vision, the most frequently used and referenced capacity of humans to verify sensation of reality. There is a parallel twin concept general/generic and specific/individual with a similar touch of growing and decreasing vagueness when applied as properties to describe objects/nouns. They also create a problem for perception as you cannot have many objects in focus at a time, indeed, you try to limit the number of items in focus to one, because what you are after is a one-on-one connection with reality. That relationship is the basis of logic and algebra, etc. the rest of cognition. All the above abstract nouns, i.e. the property of abstract come from abstraction by definition, following the tautological character of languages and word formation. In contrast with concrete nouns, i.e. objects that are deemed to exist as proven by perception, abstract nouns act like shells, both in time and in space. They are nil and void, but usefully created to give way to ontological objects so that they can be accessed by perception. There is a back and forth conversion of abstract-concrete identification/description in the mind which is necessary for social action and harmonization of scales and measurements. And since we work on an analogue mind and analogue computer rather than a digital one the various sets of frames of cognition are extended as analogies throughout our experience of life. Making the biggest difference between the mind of people in terms of the range of abstract objects (nouns) they believe in and accept as the true description of reality. In short, what we miss badly with respect to such a dubious nomenclature as abstract-concrete (nouns) properties is the explanation of the emergence of such adjectives. I assume you need to identify the mental operations that lead to abstract (abstraction) with due explanation why we need them (for example to use the verb reference without space-time context, outside the one understood in the discourse). But that subject would be original research something despised by the editors of this conglomerate of logically disconnected entries.

08:12, 15 December 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.63.35.70 (talk)

Pingelapese

Seems to be just a particular example of noun classes. I can see mentioning noun classes, but not why one obscure language should be the exemplar. 65.87.143.2 (talk) 22:53, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. I've deleted it. If someone wants to add a section about noun classes, that's fine. But obviously it shouldn't use Pingelapese as a exemplar, nor have it in the alienable/inalienable section. 2600:6C54:4180:923:4456:FA1C:34B2:BCE4 (talk) 00:48, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Noun

Noun is a kind of word,usually the name of a person,place,thing or qualities.Lingustically,noun is a member of a large,open part of a speech,whose member can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause,the object of a verb or the object of a preposition,(LolaKorner (talk) 09:32, 22 December 2019 (UTC)).

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:54, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Nominalization section needs expansion

Other instances of nominalization need mention, e.g.,

• Re gerunds: I like swimming; Smoking is bad for one's health.
• Syntactic analysis of to-infinitive phrases that function as an object: I have to exercise more; Would you like to go? NOTE: Analysis of have to as a modal verb is egregiously lame IMHO.
• Syntactic analysis of a bare infinitive with an elided "to" particle in a verb catena wherein a verb functions as an object: Protein will help (to) strengthen your muscles; I couldn't help but (to) scoff at his silly antics

I'd add all of the above myself except that, uncited as it is, it's subject to objection as WP:OR. Kent Dominic·(talk) 15:40, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Aren't those very English-specific? Wouldn't it be better to have that in English nouns? Seems like somwhat complex topics, and if we had that for a few languages, the subsection (whose main point really is to point towards the separate article on Nominalization) could end up quite heavy. //Replayful (talk | contribs) 16:41, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Good points. Kent Dominic·(talk) 19:57, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunate polysemy of "of"

A recapitulation: I suggested "You became their teacher" includes "their teacher" as a predicative argument of became rather than as complement. (After all, this is an encyclopedic article about NPs, not a scholarly treatise on how a complement may be broadly construed rather than its settled use as an object complement or subject complement.) Another editor changed the adjacent wording to say "A noun phrase typically functions within a clause as subject ... (or some other argument) of the predicate. The offending word here is "of". A casual reading can yield a misinterpretation that a subject is part of a predicate rather than an argument that relates to or accords with or corresponds to (etc., but definitely NOT complements) a predicate. Kent Dominic·(talk) 13:39, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Many casual readings result in misinterpretation; some luckily result in genuine insight; still others leave the reader mystified. You introduced certain links that would glaze the eyes of most readers who come here to learn about nouns (on a conservative estimate, >250,000 pageviews from outside Wikipedia in the last 12 months). Even you (if we go by what you wrote in edit summaries) did not understand the content at those linked articles; you resisted my reworking to keep this article congruent with them. Unlike you – with your earlier brusque removal of my link (concerning the occasional NP as head of an NP) to the exquisitely detailed and accurate Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, or CGEL – I did not unilaterally remove those links of yours. I simply wanted to have this article respect the content that you linked to.

If you think Argument (linguistics) has bad content, fix it there. It you find Huddleston and Pullum's CGEL in error also, contact them and set them right. (I've had words with Pullum myself on non-CGEL matters. You think I'm rude!)

One of many possible excerpts from CGEL (with a little context) to illustrate how subjects are considered arguments just as objects are, with my underlining:

1.2 Complements vs adjuncts

[...]

(f) Arguments

In the simplest cases the propositional meaning of a clause (ignoring the component contributed by the tense) can be described in terms of a semantic predicate together with one or more arguments. The semantic predicate represents some property, relation, process, action, etc., and the arguments represent the entities involved – the bearer of the property, the terms in the relation, etc. Prototypically, the semantic predicate corresponds to the syntactic predicator, and the arguments correspond to complements.[a footnote here about predicates and predicators] In our initial example, He always reads the paper before breakfast, the complements he and the paper are arguments of read, but the adjuncts always and before breakfast are not: semantically, they are concerned with circumstances of the situation (frequency and temporal location respectively) rather than entities involved in the reading.

[...]

And WP articles that you were happy to have linked, including Argument (linguistics), align with the CGEL usage. I would not have invoked that advanced and difficult notion in this elementary introduction to nouns, but you did. I merely wanted it done in a way that would not mislead hapless readers.

With that goal in mind, I'll now restore detailing that kept things coordinated and correct. If you still disagree, show right here how giving an inaccurate impression (that the subject is not such an argument) is better for the article and for readers. 49.190.56.203 (talk) 22:12, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Long and short: This article is about nouns, not NPs. The article's section on Noun phrases is linked to that article, which says "Noun phrases often function as verb subjects and objects, as predicative expressions, and as complements of prepositions." That description, unlike your wording in this article, is accurate and unobjectionable. Accordingly, I'm removing the entire un-cited, interpolated indirect quote that gives your personal spin on CGEL, Pullum, et al. If you are inured to the idea that something more needs to be said about the linguistic essence of a noun phrase, I suggest providing a relevant cite to a reliable source in the Noun phrase article. Kent Dominic·(talk) 01:42, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Indeed, I fully intended to do some work on Noun phrase once matters were more settled here.

You seem to have trouble dropping the stick concerning content of the relevant section here. Your latest edit summary includes wildly inaccurate remarks about wording that you and I both contributed to: "Removed an un-cited, interpolated, indirect quote that gives a subjective, semantically equivocal spin on CGEL, Pullum, et al." That was foolish indeed, since you were the one to complicate things with a link to Argument (linguistics). I certainly would not have added that! But I did what was needed to make sense of your linking to that advanced content, with perfectly straightforward linguistic theory from CGEL (with which other authorities agree). You claimed in another summary that verbs do not take complements: "Intransitive verbs have neither objects nor complements whether by linguistic analysis or just plain grammatical convention." Manifestly untrue. They often take complements: predicative complements (PCs). Anyway, here is the text concerning noun phrases before you first edited the article (and this how you left it, before I arrived on the scene; with my underlining):

A noun phrase is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like words (nominal) optionally accompanied by modifiers such as determiners and adjectives. A noun phrase functions within a clause or sentence in a role such as that of subject, object, or complement of a verb or preposition. For example, in the sentence "The black cat sat on a dear friend of mine", the noun phrase the black cat serves as the subject, and the noun phrase a dear friend of mine serves as the complement of the preposition on.

In your 3.5 years of involvement you made no objection to that. It's hard to see hard not to see your efforts to "correct" my own improvements to the section as not merely uninformed but also plain tendentious. I do hope you'll leave it as I have now edited it, with additional mark-up and explanation in the examples. 49.190.56.203 (talk) 06:11, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I've restored prior language re your recent edit. See the edit summary for the rationale. See your talk page for other issues you raised. Kent Dominic·(talk) 15:48, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Kent Dominic, rather than deal with the same issues at all places where you have posted, I reply here only.

Goodbye, and good luck! ☺♥ 49.190.56.203 (talk) 23:21, 3 February 2024 (UTC)