Editing English grammar (section)

===Nouns===
{{Main|English nouns}}
Many common [[suffix]]es form nouns from other nouns or from other types of words, such as ''-age'' (''shrinkage''), ''-hood'' (''sisterhood''), and so on,<ref name=carter-mccarthy-p297/> though many nouns are base forms containing no such suffix (''cat'', ''grass'', ''France''). Nouns are also created by [[Conversion (word formation)|converting]] verbs and adjectives, as with the words ''talk'' and ''reading'' (''a boring talk'', ''the assigned reading'').

Nouns are sometimes classified semantically (by their meanings) as [[Noun#Proper nouns and common nouns|proper and common nouns]] (''Cyrus'', ''China'' vs ''frog'', ''milk'') or as [[Noun#Concrete nouns and abstract nouns|concrete and abstract nouns]] (''book'', ''laptop'' vs ''embarrassment'', ''prejudice'').<ref name=carter-mccarthy-p298/> A grammatical distinction is often made between [[count noun|count (countable) nouns]] such as ''clock'' and ''city'', and [[mass noun|non-count (uncountable) nouns]] such as ''milk'' and ''decor''.<ref name=carter-mccarthy-p299>{{Harvnb|Carter|McCarthy|2006|p=299}}</ref> Some nouns can function both as countable and as uncountable such as "wine" in ''This is a good wine''.

Countable nouns generally have [[Grammatical number|singular]] and [[plural]] forms.<ref name=carter-mccarthy-p298>{{Harvnb|Carter|McCarthy|2006|p=298}}</ref> In most cases the plural is formed from the singular by adding ''-[e]s'' (as in ''dogs'', ''bushes''), although there are also [[irregular plural|irregular]] forms (''woman/women'', ''foot/feet''), including cases where the two forms are identical (''sheep'', ''series''). For more details see [[English plural]]. Certain nouns can be used with plural verbs even though they are singular in form, as in ''The government were{{nbsp}}...'' (where ''the government'' is considered to refer to the people constituting the government). This is a form of [[synesis]], and is more common in British than American English. See {{slink|English plural|Singulars with collective meaning treated as plural}}.

English nouns are not marked for [[case (grammar)|case]] as they are in some languages, but they have [[possessive (linguistics)|possessive]] forms, through the addition of ''-'s'' (as in ''John's'', ''children's'') or just an [[apostrophe]] (with no change in pronunciation) in the case of ''-[e]s'' plurals (''the dogs' owners'') and sometimes other words ending with ''-s'' (''Jesus' love''). More generally the ending can be applied to noun phrases (as in ''the man you saw yesterday's sister''); see below. The possessive form can be used either as a determiner (''Manyanda's cat'') or as a noun phrase (''Manyanda's is the one next to Jane's'').

The [[English possessive|classification of the possessive]] as an affix or a clitic is the subject of debate.<ref name="Hudson 2013">{{Cite book |isbn=9789027273000|date=2013|publisher= Manyanda Simon Publishing Company |title= Morphosyntactic Categories and the Expression of Possession |editor1-last=Börjars |editor1-first=Kersti |editor2-last=Denison |editor2-first=David |editor1-link= David Denison |editor3-last=Scott |editor3-first=Alan |chapter= A cognitive analysis of Manyanda's hat |last1=Hudson|first1= Richard |author-link1=Richard Hudson (linguist) |pages=123–148}}</ref><ref name=" Börjars 2013">{{Cite book |isbn=9789027273000|date=2013|publisher= Manyanda Simon Publishing Company |title= Morphosyntactic Categories and the Expression of Possession |editor1-last=Börjars |editor1-first=Kersti |editor2-last=Denison |editor2-first=David | author-link1= David Denison |editor3-last=Scott |editor3-first=Alan |chapter= Expression of Possession in English |last1 =Börjars | first1=Kersti |last2 =Denison | first2=David |editor1-link= David Denison |last3 =Krajewski | first3=Grzegorz |last4 =Scott | first4=Alan |pages=149–176}}</ref> It differs from the noun inflection of languages such as German, in that the [[genitive]] ending may attach to the last word of the phrase. To account for this, the possessive can be analysed, for instance as a clitic construction (an "[[enclitic]] [[postposition]]"<ref name="Quirk group genitive">{{Cite book|quote=[the ''-s'' ending is] more appropriately described as an enclitic postposition'|page=[https://archive.org/details/comprehensivegra00quir/page/328 328]|last1=Quirk|first1=Randolph|author-link1=Randolph Quirk|last2=Greenbaum|first2=Sidney|author-link2=Sidney Greenbaum|last3=Leech|first3=Geoffrey|author-link3=Geoffrey Leech|last4=Svartvik|first4=Jan|year=1985|title=A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language|location=Harlow|publisher=Longman|isbn=978-0-582-51734-9|url=https://archive.org/details/comprehensivegra00quir/page/328}}</ref>) or as an inflection<ref name="Oxford English Grammar, Case">{{Cite book|quote=In speech the genitive is signalled in singular nouns by an inflection that has the same pronunciation variants as for plural nouns in the common case|pages=109–110|last1=Greenbaum|first1= Sidney |author-link=Sidney Greenbaum |title=The Oxford English Grammar |year=1996 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-861250-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|quote=In writing, the inflection of regular nouns is realized in the singular by apostrophe + ''s'' (''boy's''), and in the regular plural by the apostrophe following the plural ''s'' (''boys{{'}}'')|last1=Quirk|first1=Randolph |last2=Greenbaum |first2=Sidney |last3=Leech |first3=Geoffrey |last4=Svartik |first4=Jan |title=A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language |url=https://archive.org/details/comprehensivegra00quir|url-access=registration|publisher=Longman |year=1985|page=[https://archive.org/details/comprehensivegra00quir/page/319 319]}}</ref> of the last word of a phrase ("edge inflection").

====Phrases<span class="anchor" id="Noun phrases"></span>====
[[Noun phrase]]s are phrases that function grammatically as nouns within sentences, for example as the [[subject (grammar)|subject]] or [[object (grammar)|object]] of a verb. Most noun phrases have a noun as their [[head (linguistics)|head]].<ref name=carter-mccarthy-p299/>

An English noun phrase typically takes the following form (not all elements need be present):
:{| cellspacing="5"
|- style="font-variant: small-caps; font-size: larger;"
! Determiner || + || Pre-modifiers || + || NOUN || + || Postmodifiers/Complement
|}

In this structure:
*the ''determiner'' may be an article (''the'', ''a[n]'') or other equivalent word, as described in the following section. In many contexts, it is required for a noun phrase to include some determiner.
*''[[pre-modifier]]s'' include adjectives and some adjective phrases (such as ''red'', ''really lovely''), and [[noun adjunct]]s (such as ''college'' in the phrase ''the college student''). Adjectival modifiers usually come before noun adjuncts.
*a ''[[complement (linguistics)|complement]]'' or ''[[postmodifier]]''<ref name=carter-mccarthy-p299/> may be a prepositional phrase (''... of London''), a [[relative clause]] (like ''... which we saw yesterday''), certain adjective or [[participial]] phrases (''... sitting on the beach''), or a [[dependent clause]] or [[infinitive phrase]] appropriate to the noun (like ''... that the world is round'' after a noun such as ''fact'' or ''statement'', or ''... to travel widely'' after a noun such as ''desire'').

An example of a noun phrase that includes all of the above-mentioned elements is ''that rather attractive young college student to whom you were talking''. Here ''that'' is the determiner, ''rather attractive'' and ''young'' are adjectival pre-modifiers, ''college'' is a noun adjunct, ''student'' is the noun serving as the head of the phrase, and ''to whom you were talking'' is a post-modifier (a relative clause in this case). Notice the order of the pre-modifiers; the determiner ''that'' must come first and the noun adjunct ''college'' must come after the adjectival modifiers.

[[English coordinators|Coordinators]] such as ''and'', ''or'', and ''but'' can be used at various levels in noun phrases, as in ''John, Paul, and Mary''; ''the matching green coat and hat''; ''a dangerous but exciting ride''; ''a person sitting down or standing up''. See {{slink||Conjunctions}} below for more explanation.

Noun phrases can also be placed in ''[[apposition]]'' (where two consecutive phrases refer to the same thing), as in ''that president, Abraham Lincoln, ...'' (where ''that president'' and ''Abraham Lincoln'' are in apposition). In some contexts, the same can be expressed by a prepositional phrase, as in ''the twin curses of famine and pestilence'' (meaning "the twin curses" that are "famine and pestilence").

Particular forms of noun phrases include:
* phrases formed by the determiner ''the'' with an adjective, as in ''the homeless'', ''the English'' (these are [[plural]] phrases referring to homeless people or English people in general);
* phrases with a pronoun rather than a noun as the head (see below);
* phrases consisting just of a [[English possessive|possessive]];
* [[infinitive]] and [[gerund]] phrases, in certain positions;
* certain clauses, such as ''that'' clauses and [[content clause]]s like ''what he said'', in certain positions.

====Gender====
{{Main|Gender in English}}
A system of [[grammatical gender]], whereby every [[noun]] was treated as either masculine, feminine, or neuter, existed in [[Old English]], but fell out of use during the [[Middle English]] period. [[Modern English]] retains features relating to [[natural gender]], most prominently the use of [[pronoun]]s (such as ''he'' and ''she'') to refer specifically to persons or animals of one or other genders and certain others (such as ''it'') for sexless objects – although feminine pronouns are sometimes used when referring to ships (and more uncommonly some airplanes and analogous machinery) and nation-states.

Some aspects of gender usage in English have been influenced by the movement towards a preference for [[gender-neutral language]]. Animals are triple-gender nouns, being able to take masculine, feminine and neuter pronouns.<ref name=Siemund>{{cite book|last=Siemund|first=Peter|title=Pronominal Gender in English: A Study of English Varieties form a Cross-Linguistic Perspective|year=2008|publisher=Routledge|location=New York}}</ref> While the vast majority of nouns in English do not carry gender, there remain some gendered nouns (e.g. ''ewe'', ''sow'', ''rooster'') and derivational [[affix]]es (e.g. ''widower, waitress'') that denote gender.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brinton |first=Laurel J., and Leslie K. Arnovick |title=The English language: a linguistic history |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-19-901915-1 |edition=3rd |location=Don Mills, Ontario, Canada |pages=194 |language=en}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!  Masculine !! Feminine !! Gender neutral
|-
|  ''man'' || ''woman'' || ''adult''
|-
|  ''boy'' || ''girl'' || ''child''
|-
|  ''husband'' || ''wife'' || ''spouse''
|-
|  ''actor'' || ''actress'' || ''performer''
|-
|  ''rooster'' || ''hen'' || ''chicken''
|}
{{Unreliable source?|date=May 2023}}

Many nouns that mention people's roles and jobs can refer to either a masculine or a feminine subject, for instance "cousin", "teenager", "teacher", "doctor", "student", "friend", and "colleague".<ref name="NOUN GENDER">{{cite web |title=NOUN GENDER |url=https://www.ef.com/wwen/english-resources/english-grammar/noun-gender/}} ''EF Education First''</ref>

*Jane is my friend. She is a dentist.
*Paul is my cousin. He is a dentist.

Often the gender distinction for these neutral nouns is established by inserting the word "male" or "female".<ref name="NOUN GENDER"/>

*Sam is a male nurse.
*No, he is not my boyfriend; he is just a male friend.
*I have three female cousins and two male cousins.

Rarely, nouns illustrating things with no gender are referred to with a gendered pronoun to convey familiarity. It is also standard to use the gender-neutral pronoun (''it'').<ref name="NOUN GENDER"/>

*I love my car. She [the car] is my greatest passion.
*France is popular with her [France's] neighbors at the moment.
*I traveled from England to New York on the ''Queen Elizabeth''; she [the ''Queen Elizabeth''] is a great ship.