NOUN

A noun is a word that represents a person, place, thing, or idea. Nouns play a vital role in English because they serve as the subjects of sentences, objects of verbs, and more.

Types of Nouns:

  1. Common Nouns: Common nouns are general names for people, places, things, or ideas. They are not capitalized unless they begin a sentence. Example: horse, boy, city, book, happiness, etc.

  2. Proper Nouns: Proper nouns are specific names of people, places, organisation or things, and they are capitalized. Example: Shyam, India, Pepsi, etc.

  3. Concrete Nouns: These refer to things that have a physical presence or can be perceived through the senses. Example: Music, chair, flower

  4. Abstract Nouns: These refer to ideas, emotions, qualities, or concepts that can't be seen or touched. Example: love, freedom, happiness

  5. Countable Nouns: These nouns can be counted and have plural forms. Example: book (books), tree (trees)

  6. Uncountable Nouns: These nouns cannot be counted individually and usually don't have a plural form. Example: water, knowledge, music

  7. Collective Nouns: Collective nouns refer to a group of individuals and are often treated as a single unit. Example: team, family, herd

  8. Compound Nouns: Made up of two or more words. Example: French fries, Playschool, etc.

Cases of Nouns: Cases play a grammatical role in a sentence. It shows a relation with other words. Noun cases tell about the position and role of a Noun in a sentence. Nouns can have different forms or cases:

  1. Nominative Case or Subjective Case: This is used for the subject of a sentence or in a predicate nominative. Example: Ram is a Professor. (subject), The winner is he. (predicate nominative)

  2. Objective Case: This is used for the object of a verb or preposition. Example: Sheela saw her at the mall. (object of verb), Ram gave the gift to him. (object of preposition)

  3. Possessive Case: It shows ownership or possession. "of " or " 's" [Apostrophe 's'] denotes possession or ownership. The possessive case is used to show ownership, possession, or a relationship between two nouns. It shows one noun belongs to or is associated with another noun. Example:  Sohan's book, The Book of Sohan.

You might see some other cases of nouns but these are the most important cases and mainly all the questions asked in various exams from above given cases

Noun Nominative and Objective cases remain the same. The problem occurs in the possessive case. let's drive  into the possessive case in detail:

Note: You can not use " 's " in every place.Example: A chair's leg was broken.

In this sentence chair's leg is wrongly used. Generally, we can't use " 's " with non-living things. So the correct sentence is: Th leg of a chair was broken. 

Uses of 's: 

  • For Singular Nouns:
    • If a noun doesn't end in "s", simply add 's.
    • Example: The cow's tail.
    • If a noun ends in "s", you can choose to add either just an apostrophe[ ' ] or 's.
    • Example: James's car or James' car.

  • For Plural Nouns:

    • If the plural noun doesn't end in "s," add 's.
    • Example: The children's toys.
    • If the plural noun already ends in "s," only add an apostrophe [ ' ] after the "s."
    • Example: The students' books.
  • Show Ownership: The most common use of the possessive case is to show ownership.
    • Ram's Bike (the bike belonging to Ram).

  • Express Relationships: It can also express a relationship between two nouns.

    • The company's policy (the policy of the company).

  • Indirect Ownership: when the possessor is not a living being.

    • The Earth's atmosphere (the atmosphere of the Earth).

  • Joint Possession: only the last noun takes the possessive form.

    • Renu and Manoj's wedding (the wedding of Renu and Manoj).

  • Separate Possession: Both nouns take the possessive form.

    • Ram's and Ravi's cars (the cars belonging to Ram and Ravi separately).

Note: The possessive case can only be used with nouns, not pronouns. Pronouns have their own possessive forms, such as "my," "your," "his," "her," "its," "our," and "their." Example: My pen, your book.

Some other points related to 's:

  • Do not use 's with two continuous nouns.
    • Example: Rima's sister's job. (incorrect) 
    • The job of Rima's sister(correct)
  • " 's" is used only at the end of compound nouns.
    • Example: Brother-in-law's car [ not brother's-in-law's car]
  • Apostrophe [ 's ] can be used with  everybody/ anybody/ anyone/ everyone/ someone/ no one/ nobody/ each other/ one another
    • Example: Everybody's idea, Each other's idea.