NOUNS - 1

What is a Noun?
A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and abstract idea. Nouns are usually the first words which small children learn.

Look at the examples below.

Late last year our neighbours bought a goat.
Portia White was an opera singer.

A noun can function in a sentence as a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, a subject complement, an object complement, an appositive, an adjective or an adverb

Types Of Nouns
There are many different types of nouns. As you know, you capitalise some nouns, such as "Canada" or "Louise," and do not capitalise others, such as "badger" or "tree" (unless they appear at the beginning of a sentence). In fact, grammarians have developed a whole series of noun types, including the proper noun, the common noun, the concrete noun, the abstract noun, the countable noun (also called the count noun), the uncountable noun (also called the mass noun), and the collective noun. You should note that a noun will belong to more than one type: it will be proper or common, abstract or concrete, and countable or uncountable or collective.

If you are interested in the details of these different types, you can read about them in the following sections.

Proper Nouns
You always write a proper noun with a capital letter, since the noun represents the name of a specific person, place, or thing. The names of days of the week, months, historical documents, institutions, organisations, religions, their holy texts and their adherents are proper nouns. A proper noun is the opposite of a common noun

Examples:

The Marroons were transported from Jamaica and forced to build the fortifications in Halifax.
Many people dread Monday mornings.
Abraham appears in the Talmud and in the Koran.

Common Nouns
A common noun is a noun referring to a person, place, or thing in a general sense -- usually, you should write it with a capital letter only when it begins a sentence. A common noun is the opposite of a proper noun.

In each of the following sentences, can you find the common nouns?

According to the sign, the nearest town is 60 miles away.
All the gardens in the neighbourhood were invaded by beetles this summer.
Many child-care workers are underpaid.

Sometimes you will make proper nouns out of common nouns, as in the following examples:

The meals in the Bouncing Bean Restaurant are less expensive than meals in ordinary restaurants.
Many witches refer to the Renaissance as the Burning Times.
The Diary of Anne Frank is often a child's first introduction to the history of the Holocaust.

Concrete Nouns
A concrete noun is a noun which names anything or anyone that you can perceive through your physical senses: touch, sight, taste, hearing, or smell. A concrete noun is the opposite of a abstract noun.

Look at the sentences below. Can you find the concrete nouns?

The judge handed the files to the clerk.
Whenever they take the dog to the beach, it spends hours chasing waves.
The book binder replaced the flimsy paper cover with a sturdy, cloth-covered board.

Abstract Nouns
An abstract noun is a noun which names anything which you can not perceive through your five physical senses, and is the opposite of a concrete noun.

Examples:

Buying the fire extinguisher was an afterthought.
Justice often seems to slip out of our grasp.
Some scientists believe that schizophrenia is transmitted genetically.




Source : http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/nouns.html