After looking very closely at verbs over the last several chapters, we now turn our attention to other parts of sentences. Key to many of these other parts is the noun and noun phrase. Nouns and noun phrases comprise the second essential feature of a sentence, the subject, and they make up certain parts of predicate structure, as well. We have already briefly noted that nouns can act as the subject complement after a linking verb and as either a direct object or an indirect object after a transitive action verb. In this chapter, we will look more closely at other syntactic roles that they can play and the details of the structure of noun phrases. To begin, however, let’s first attempt to identify and define nouns.

Think about what you already know about nouns.  How would you define a noun?  When you see a word, how do you know if it is a noun or not?  What do you use to help you decide?  Can you list, identify, define, or organize some different types of nouns?  Do you know what noun phrases or noun clauses are?  What do you think might be hard about nouns for non-native speakers of English?

Activity 8.1: Defining nouns:

What is the definition of a noun?

Fill in the text box below with your definition, then click on "Recommended Answer."

Look at the following words and select the nouns.

Exercise B: Click on each noun to circle it. When you have done most of the answers, a check button will appear. Click and hold on the Check button to show errors corrected, but in red.

 Let up on the correct button to reset the errors, then select correct answers.

How did you know which words were the nouns? Reflect on this, fill in the text box below with your answer, then click on the "Usual Answer" button.

Look at the following sentences and find the words that are nouns:

Exercise C: Click on each noun to change the color to blue.

In the sentences, how did you know which words were nouns? Reflect on this, fill in the text box below with your answer, then click on the "Usual Answer" button.

Using the same sentences as above, in the exercise below, what grammatical role does each noun play?

Exercise D: Click on each noun to rotate through options for grammatical roles. When you have the correct answer, click on the Check button to assess.

Reference: Exercise 8.1-D uses the full names for the grammatical roles. Below is a list of role abbreviations as used in exercises.

Page 2 - Noun Phrases