The Noun, Pronouns and Possessives, Adjectives - Passage Practice

At a grammar exhibition, Ms. Salma, our English teacher, placed five cards on a table. The first card carried the words Hasan, Rajshahi, and History. She explained that these are proper nouns because they name particular persons, places, or subjects and begin with capital letters. The second card showed teacher, village, and book. These are common nouns because they can refer to any member of a class. The third card showed team and committee. Each word names a group taken as one whole, so each is a collective noun. On the fourth card were gold, milk, and oil. They are material nouns because they name substances that cannot normally be counted separately. The last card displayed bravery, honesty, and justice. These are abstract nouns because they name qualities or concepts without material form.

Beside the cards, Salma wrote child and children to show singular and plural number. She added knife and knives, explaining that some nouns change their ending. She then wrote, Rina’s notebook is beside the students’ bags. The first possessive shows one person’s ownership, while the second shows ownership by a plural noun ending in s. Finally, she wrote, Rafiq, our monitor, arranged the display. Here our monitor is in apposition to Rafiq, because both refer to the same person. Salma concluded that nouns may name persons, places, things, groups, substances, qualities, states, or concepts, and that pronouns such as she, they, and our help us avoid repeating nouns.