Collective nouns Nouns which describe groups or organisations (e.g. ‘family’, ‘team’, are called collective nouns. They can either be singular or plural ‘government’) depending on whether we are describing the unit or its members. We can say ‘The army are or army is This choice usually available advancing’ ‘The advancing’. isn’t in American English, however, where you would expect speakers to use singular verbs only. Some collective nouns are formed by making adjectives behave like nouns and in this case they are always plural, e.g. poor live in terrible ‘The conditions’, good ‘The die young’. Whether a noun is countable, uncountable, plural or collective affects the construction of the sentences it occurs in. Uncountable nouns are used with singular verbs, and quantifiers like a lot and Countable nouns, ‘much’, of’ ‘some’. on the other hand, are used with singular or plural verbs and with words like ‘many’. Compound nouns We are used to nouns being one word. But English also has many compound nouns, constructed from more than one word, e.g. ‘walking stick’, ‘cherry tree’, ‘town hair, ‘boyfriend’. Not all compound words are nouns, however. We can also have compound adjectives, for example, ‘fair-skinned’, ‘neat-looking’. Pronouns There are three basic types of pronoun: personal pronouns, reflexive (personal) pronouns and relative pronouns. Personal pronouns Personal pronouns and - and which arc T, ‘you, ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘we’ ‘they’ ‘it’ isn’t really personal at all! Not only do they have these subject realisations, however,
Collective nouns Nouns which describe groups or organisations (e.g. ‘family’, ‘team’, ‘government’) are called collective nouns. They can either be singular or plural depending on whether we are describing the unit or its members. We can say ‘The army are advancing’ or ‘The army is advancing’. This choice isn’t usually available in American English, however, where you would expect speakers to use singular verbs only. Some collective nouns are formed by making adjectives behave like nouns and in this case they are always plural, e.g. ‘The poor live in terrible conditions’, ‘The good die young’. Whether a noun is countable, uncountable, plural or collective affects the construction of the sentences it occurs in. Uncountable nouns are used with singular verbs, and quantifiers like ‘much’, a lot of’ and ‘some’. Countable nouns, on the other hand, are used with singular or plural verbs and with words like ‘many’. Compound nouns We are used to nouns being one word. But English also has many compound nouns, constructed from more than one word, e.g. ‘walking stick’, ‘cherry tree’, ‘town hair, ‘boyfriend’. Not all compound words are nouns, however. We can also have compound adjectives, for example, ‘fair-skinned’, ‘neat-looking’. Pronouns There are three basic types of pronoun: personal pronouns, reflexive (personal) pronouns and relative pronouns. Personal pronouns Personal pronouns arc T, ‘you, ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘we’ and ‘they’ - and ‘it’ which isn’t really personal at all! Not only do they have these subject realisations, however,
379.HowToTeachEnglish.docx