The "Nominal" Essay (Original)

For that one person who wanted to read the original: here it is (in slightly edited form).

Nouns are perhaps the most plentiful group of words in the English language, and one of the few grammatical categories that exist in all known, spoken, human languages. They are also the first class of words to be learned by infants.

Nouns can take the place of the subject, object and complement of a clause. As in perceived "primative" speech, the absence of verbs ields a strong, implicit sense of copula, thus equating two nouns, whence such famous examples as, "I Tarzan, you Jane".

Nouns can be separated into several categories (in a rather binary fashion). They are either proper or common, common nouns are either countable or non-count, and both types of common nouns are either concrete or abstract.

Proper nouns are those which we use to refer to very specific (and usually corporeal) things, such as individuals, locations, prototype mechanisms, etc. Examples include "Zeus," "Chicago," "Saturn," and "SPUTNIK-III".

Common nouns, on the other hand, refer to groups of things, such as species, tpes of land, groups of people, classes of manufactured items, etc. Examples include "hammer," "fox," "ocean," "country," "ghost," and "adverb".

The distinction between count and non-count common nouns lies in their ability to pluralize and take articles. As their names imply, count nouns can be counted (pluralized) while non-count nouns cannot.

In English, count nouns are most often pluralized by the appendage of the letter S. We can see this in words such as "words," "nouns," "trees," "planets". A small group of words also suffer orthographic change, as words which end with the letter "y" and are preceeded by a consonant. Thus, "fly" becomes "flies," and "story" becomes "stories". The converse is also true, in which words whose penultimate letters are vowels and end in the letter "y" retain the "y" and simply add an "s" as in "essays".

The other type of regular English pluralizer is the -es. This pluralizer is used for words which end with a /s/ or /z/, as well as the letter "x". Thus, "fox" and "bus" become "foxes" and "buses".

There are finally an even smaller group of words which are pluralized in neither of the two aforementioned ways. In this group, the general rule is to "pluralize as in its original language," in which the original language is indo-european in origin. This yields plural nouns such as "oxen," "cacti," "referenda," "geese" and "mice" from "ox," "cactus," "referendum," "goose" and "mouse".

Non-count nouns are either those which remain the same when pluralized, or require a sort of qualifier. Examples of the first type include "sheep," "cattle" and "beer". Examples of the latter include "water" and "money".

But whether these common nouns can be pluralized, they are also often dependent on special qualifiers to group them. Thus, "a muder of crows," "a school of fish," "a pride of lions" and "a pack of wolves".

Both count and non-count nouns are also semantically divided into "concrete" and "abstract". Concrete nouns are those which refer to real, nascent, and usually tangible things, while abtract nouns refer to imaginary, incoporeal things, such as "ideas," " thoughts" and "globalization".

While proper nouns cannot be counted, they may sometimes be used as a category, as in "all the Josephs in the world".

Nouns can also be qualified, as with determiners, adjectives and sometimes other nouns. The determiners most often give information on number (how many? sing/pl?) and also specify anaphorically or catephorically (eg. "the cat" or "a cat"). Adjectives give information aon the nature of the thing being refered to by the noun, whether it be colour, size, shape, age, æsthetic, etc., which in turn can be intensified by adverbs (eg. "the extremely grotesque boutique"). Some proper nouns may modify common nouns to specify type or brand. An example of this is "lecture hall".

Nouns also have case, a distinction that has virtually disappeared from English, due to its lack of inflection and declension. However, they are still evident in syntax-cognitive understanding, as well as the change in personal pronouns.

The nominative case, is simply the "subject," or more precisely, the case in which the noun is used in the subject. Thus, for copular verbs, both subject and complement are in the nominative. (eg. "It is I, Aladdin.")

The second case is the accusative, which is the noun which suffers the verb. In English grammar, this simply translates to the object. In pronouns, this is seen in the change from "I" to "me," or "he" to "him".

The third case is the dative, which is often the indirect object, and in English, even pronominal distinction is nonexistent. (Consider "I gave her away" and "I gave a cat to her".)

The fourth most common case is the genitive, in which possession is expressed. In English, this is found in using proper nouns to modify common nouns, eg: "Mary's lamb" or "John's eraser".

Another aspect of nouns is gender. While English does not have grammatical gender, as does German and French, there do exist a small set of words which do have semantic gender, most commonly in describing people and animals. Masculine nouns include "man," "boy," "bull," "stallion" and "rooster," while feminine nouns include "woman," "girl," "sow," "mare" and "hen". Most nouns, however, are neutral, and use the personal pronoun "it" or "they", depending on plurality.

A few neuter nouns, however, seem to become feminine when spoken by entusiastic (and/or inspired) males, giving rise to such statements as "she's a fast car," or "English, she was industrious during the 19th-century".

On the whole, nouns are one of the most fundamental and plentiful class of words. While they are an open class, they have a closed sub-class of pronouns. Over time, nouns are removed and added to the English lexicon to meet the need to name and describe new inventions, discoveries and ideas.


Incidentally, I got an "A+/A" on it, with the following comment: "Excellent. Also, beautiful handwriting." Ha-ha... My prof's so funny.