Using various parts of speech

We start this episode on familiar territory, using nouns. A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing or idea. Persons: Charles Dube. Places: Bulawayo, dam, restaurant, and chess board. Things: radio, umbrella, pizza, ticket. Ideas: love, freedom, safety, anger, beauty and many more.

Names as we all know may be classified in many ways: The following list shows the various types of nouns: Common noun: A general name such as singer, musician, house, and river. A proper name is a specific name such as Chenjerai Hove, Plumtree. State House, Zambezi River. Note that proper nouns are always capitalised.

Concrete noun: Anything that can be seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted, such as forest, thunder, oudor, cloth, and banana. Abstract noun is something that cannot be recognized through the senses, such as pity, truth, ability, love. Compound noun: A noun made of two or more words. Compound nouns may be written as one word, as two words, or with a hyphen such as football, high school, and great-grandmother.

Collective noun is a noun that names a group of people, or things, such as audience, herd, team, and family. We are told that there are many collective nouns, especially those that refer to groups of animals: a plague of locusts, a wedge of swans and a pride of lions. People who love to play with words have made up some original collective nouns that you will not find in a dictionary, like a click of photographers.

Nouns change form to show singular or plural number and to show possession. Form the plural of most nouns by adding –s, -es, or –ies. Most nouns form the plural by simply adding –s to the singular: car -cars, cat -cats, hammer- hammers, stove – stoves, and bulb -bulbs. Nouns that end in –s, sh, -ch, -x, or –z form the plural by adding –es. Even if you forget the exact rule you can see from the following examples that adding –es to such words just looks and sounds right.

Glass –glasses, dish – dishes, match – matches, tax – taxes, buzz – buzzes. For most singular nouns ending in –o, ad –s to form the plural. For a few nouns that end in an –o preceded by a consonant add –es. Studio- studios, radio –radios, photo- photos, tomato – tomatoes, hero – heroes, echo – echo –echoes. If a noun ends in –y with a vowel before it, add –s to form the plural. If the –y follows a consonant change the –y to – (i) and add –es: toy-toys, ray-rays, key – keys, lady – ladies and country – countries.

For most nouns ending in f or fe, change the f to v and add –es or –s. Since there is no rule, you must memorise such words: life –lives, calf –calves, knife – knives, thief- thieves, shelf – shelves and loaf – loaves. For some nouns ending in f, add –s to make plural: roof –roofs, chief – chiefs, reef – reefs, belief – beliefs.

Some nouns have the same form for both singular and plural. Deer – deer, sheep – sheep, salmon and trout. For some nouns, the plural is formed in a special way. Man – men, goose- geese, ox –oxen, woman – women, mouse – mice, child –children. For a compound noun written as one word, form the plural by changing the last word in the compound to its plural form: stepchild – stepchildren, firefly – fireflies.

If the compound noun is written as separate or as hyphenated words, change the most important word to the plural form: brother-in-law, brothers-in-law, life jacket, and life jackets. The rules for spelling compound nouns are complex. For example use a hyphen for all in-laws and great-relatives; brother-in-law; great-great-grandmother. Use a hyphen for vice-president but not for vice-admiral.

Write the plural form of each of the following nouns: year, sky, tooth, fox, bunch, passer-by, coach, spy, raindrop, wish, and copy.

Forming possessives: Nouns not only name things; they also show possession, ownership, or that something is part of a person. There are only three rules for forming the possessives of nouns: If a noun is singular, add‘s to form the possessive: George – George’s, horse – horse’s, child – child’s, man –man’s. Mr Harris – Mr Harris’s.

If the noun is plural and already ends in –s, add just the apostrophe. Doctors – doctors’ advice, committees –committees’ officers. If the noun is plural and does not end in –es; add‘s: people – people’s opinion, jury – jury’s decision. Remember that noun plurals and possessives both end in –s, you might confuse one with the other. Plurals show number and possessives show ownership.

Do the following exercise on possessives to show that you have understood today’s lesson. Write the possessive forms of these nouns: secretaries, banker, photographer, hours, Lee, designers, customers, artist, day, Mr Briggs and Paddy.

For views link with [email protected] or sms to 0772113207.