Talk:Noun/Archive 1

Noun

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Archive 1

I've got nothing against simple explanations of simple things. However, this

trees, cars, houses, people, etc. These are all nouns.

is false. A tree is not a word and hence not a noun. --Larry Sanger 13:41, 17 April 2007 (CDT)

I agree. This is terribly written. After a correct definition, we might see things like grammatical number, grammatical case, etc., then things on the syntactic roles of nouns within a sentence. The last time I read anything similar to a statement that a tree is a noun was when humor columnist Dave Barry ran his annual holier-than-thou condescending column explaining grammar. Among other things, after mentioning the idea that verbs can have objects, he explained that an object is a noun that weighs at least two pounds. Michael Hardy 17:16, 17 April 2007 (CDT)

Agreed. And indeed, even though "tree" (the word, thus in quotes) can function as a noun, that does not necessarily mean it always is a noun. What about "fish" or "photograph"? We really need more work here from linguists; I have had a try at fixing Pronoun and English grammar, but there's too much work for just one person! Russell Potter 11:23, 18 April 2007 (CDT)

Nouns and words

Michael, glad to see another person taking an interest in this entry -- but not all nouns are words (as odd as that may seem). In linguistics, it's common speak of the noun phrase (NP) as the basic functional category of the noun, acknowledging that "Joe's slice of burnt toast" can have a grammatical function (serving as the subject or object of a sentence) identical to single-word nouns such as "shoe" or "penny." For this reason, it's more accurate to call a noun a category into which some word or words which are functioning as nouns may be included, rather than to limit it to single words, or to say that a given word is a noun, since this really depends in many cases on how it's used in a sentence. Russell Potter 14:23, 24 April 2007 (CDT)

Strange definition

A noun is a member of one kind of grammatical category, part of speech, that linguists use to divide up the part of language that deals with meaning.. Within linguistics, the study of meaning is called semantics which is surely not the same as grammar. So this should be adapted, I think. Stefan Olejniczak 08:53, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Semantics is part of grammar in the very broad sense of the word 'grammar' that linguists use, but I agree the old introduction was confusing. I have written a lot more to try to emphasise that words we call 'nouns' are not inherently nouns, but merely units used as nouns, and can be identified according to their function and modification in the sentence. Whether it's any clearer or not...

Yes, the introduction seems already much better now. Yet the information in this article is still very meagre of course. It focuses for example almost entirely on the English language and does not discuss some very important things, such as the fact that the border between nouns and other parts of speech is very vague or even does not exist at all in some language families. Stefan Olejniczak 11:08, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Exactly; there remain problems with this article, and the anglocentricism is one of them. Another is that it is written very much from the point of view of traditional grammar and not linguistics. The difference between for example nouns and pronouns is very slight, for example. Adverbs, on the other hand, are rather diverse, yet placed in the same 'part of speech'. John Stephenson 13:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Subdivisions section

I have tried to add some qualifications and expand the text here and there, but I think this section remains problematic. At heart, it is a guide to English nouns, when it should refer to nouns across the world's languages. Cross-linguistically, the strong distinctions made here - compound nouns, collective nouns, abstract nouns, etc. - rather fall apart, as they would not necessarily be recognised as grammatical categories in other languages, and certainly do not explain other noun phenomena. In Iroquoian languages, for example, you get nouns incorporated into the verb. We could have an English nouns article, I suppose, to move the material to, and possibly merge it with English irregular nouns. John Stephenson 14:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is at heart a guide to English nouns: the first version looks like a school lesson plan, unaffectedly anglocentric. I'll leave it up to you as to whether there needs to be a separate article English nouns, with English irregular nouns perhaps attached as a catalog(ue). Incidentally, I always check out Wikipedia on these matters: it has neither. Ro Thorpe 15:51, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

As an article called English nouns might not be maintainable either (as they are no more notable than, say, Latvian nouns), another possibility is to make both that and English irregular nouns catalog(ue) subpages of noun. John Stephenson 09:29, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. Ro Thorpe 17:12, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree that an article on nouns should treat them from a general linguistic viewpoint. However, I don't think that a Catalogs subpage is the proper place for discussing English nouns. Instead of English nouns, perhaps Nouns in English grammar would be a better title. There could be an article on Nouns in Latvian grammar. Why not, if someone writes it?

By the way: Shouldn't the "See also" section be moved to "Related Articles"? --Peter Schmitt 10:39, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Done. Ro Thorpe 17:12, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, so there should be an article dealing with English nouns, probably with English irregular nouns as a subpage of that, at least for now. As for the title, I agree it ought to be more informative - 'English nouns' could lead us into reams of unmaintainable material á la skive (see Talk; we were wondering about that one). We need to show that it is a more linguistic discussion, rather than just a word list. But at the same time, perhaps the word 'grammar' would create the expectation that the article will be a prescriptivist discussion of good usage, rather than a linguistic outline. John Stephenson 16:05, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Which suggests the compromise Nouns in English. - Ah, but plurals are discouraged in article names. Perhaps English noun. Actually, I'm not quite sure what your point is about skive. The problem with that article is that it resembles a dictionary entry. Yes, it discusses its use a noun, though the verb is more common. Ro Thorpe 16:22, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

As you say, that it's a dictionary entry. 'English nouns' could lead to people just adding random material on words that they think are notable. 03:45, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Right. So English noun, then? Whereas English irregular nouns is a closed class, and a subpage anyway. Ro Thorpe 14:57, 7 November 2010 (UTC)