_{Syntactic Theory}

Subclasses of Nouns

1. Count nouns
   • examples: chair, bottle, tool, clue
   • characteristics:
     • plural form is possible
     • needs a determiner when used in the singular
     • combines with determiners such as a, every, many, few
     • does not combine with determiners such as much, little
2. Non-count nouns (mass nouns)
   • examples: furniture, equipment, evidence, music, cattle
     The following examples are listed on the English wikipedia entry for mass nouns:
     advice, air, blood, crime, equipment, food, furniture, garbage, graffiti, grass, homework, housework, information, knowledge, luggage, mathematics, meat, milk, money, music, pollution, research, sand, soap, software, sugar, traffic, transportation, travel, trash, water
   • characteristics:
     • no plural form is possible
     • does not need a determiner
     • combines with determiners such as some, much, little
     • does not combine with determiners such as a, every, many, few
3. Count and non-count nouns
   • examples: cake, beer
   • characteristics:
     • a plural form is possible
     • does not need a determiner when used in the singular
     • combines with determiners such as some, much, little
     • combines with determiners such as a, every, many, few
4. proper nouns (proper names)
   • examples: Chris, London
   • characteristic:

     • no plural form is possible
     • does not allow a determiner at all

Related exercise:

• Diagnostic environments for the subclasses