UNIT 17

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PROPER NOUNS

Proper nouns are the names of particular people, places, or things. They are usually unique (there is only one).

Albert Einstein Italy

COMMON NOUNS

Common nouns refer to people, places, and things, but not by their names. For example, scientist is a common noun, but Enstein is a proper noun.

Do not capitalize the first letter of a common noun unless it is the first word in a sentence or it is in a title.

COUNT NOUNS

Common nouns can be count or non-count.

Count nouns are people, places or things that you can count separately. They have both a singular and plural form, and you can use an article (a, an, or the) in front of them.

For a list of irregular count nouns, see appendix page A-4

a dogtwo dogs

NON-COUNT NOUNS

Non-count nouns are things that you cannot count separately. For example, we can say rice, but we cannot say one rice or two rices. (We can say one piece of rice or two pieces of rice.)

Some categories of non-count nouns:

Abstract Words: education, love, time

Activities: exploring, farming, sailing

Courses of Study: archeology, history, math

Foods: corn, milk, rice

Fabrics: cotton, silk, wool

NON-COUNT NOUNS

Some common non-count nouns do not fit into categories:

equipment homework news

furniture information work

*Also, surprisingly, money is a non-count noun.

We count individual coins and bills, but the word

money is non-count.

NON-COUNT NOUNS

Non-count nouns have NO plural forms.

She bought a lot of wool. Not: wools

Non-count nouns take singular verbs and pronouns.

Archeology is an interesting subject. It was his favorite subject.

We usually do not use a or an with non-count nouns. However we can use the.

I bought a sugar at the store.

Please put the sugar on the shelf.

PRACTICE

1. Billy’s two front _______________ (tooth) _________ (be) very loose.

2. The room was so warm that all of the chocolate _______ (be) melting.3. We have several book __________________ (shelf) in the classroom that _______________ (need) to be replaced.

teeth are

was

shelvesneed

QUANTIFIERS

Use quantifiers with nouns to talk about how many or how much. Some quantifiers go only with count nouns, and some go only with non-count nouns. Others can go with both.

QUANTIFIERS

With Count Nouns With Non-Count Nouns With Both

Affirmative Statements

NegativeStatements and Questions

many, a great many,

plenty of,

several,

few, a few,

a great deal of, little,a littlea couple of,

a lot of, lots of,

some, enough,

most, all,

many much a lot of, lots of,

any, enough

PRACTICE

1. Several / A great deal of rain has fallen lately.

2. Most/Many soda contains a lot of / a great many sugar.

3. If the milk container is empty, that means we don’t have

any / much milk.

QUANTIFIERS

Be Careful!

The meaning of few and little is very different from the meaning of a few and a little.

Use few and little to mean not enough or not many/much.

We have few students in class today. (Not many are there.)

There is little money in my checking account. (I don’t have much.)

QUANTIFIERS

Use a few and a little to mean there is some. It may not be a lot, but it might be just enough.

Since we have a few students in class already, we will begin class.(There may not be a lot of students, but there are enough to start

class.)

I have a little money in my checking account, so I can pay my bills.(I don’t have a lot of money, but it is enough to pay my bills.)

PRACTICE

Would you rather . . .

have a little money or little money?

have a few problems or few problems?

have a few friends or few friends?

have a little food or little food?

have a few wrong answers on a test or few wrong answers on a test?

have a little fun or little fun?

have a little trouble or little trouble?

a little

few

a few

a little

few

a little

little