We can identify nouns based on their inflectional morphology, derivational morphology, and syntactic distribution.

In terms of inflectional morphology, nouns may inflect for person, number, gender, and/or case. In English, nouns inflect for number, with singular and plural forms. English pronouns also have person and gender distinctions, in addition to number.

There are many different kinds of derivational morphemes that modify nouns. Some examples of derivational morphemes in English are shown below in Table 1.

(adapted from Carnie 2021: 47)

In terms of syntactic distribution, noun phrases typically show up in argument positions, both the arguments of verbs and the arguments of prepositions, as shown in (1).

(1) a. The apple is red. subject

b. I ate the apple. direct object

c. I gave the apple a shine. indirect object

d. There was a worm in the apple. object of preposition

Nouns can be modified by determiners and adjectives, and so their syntactic position can often be described with reference to determiners and adjectives. In English, nouns can appear after either determiners or adjectives, or appear on their own, as shown in (2).

(2) a. I ate the apple. after a determiner
b. I ate the red apple. after an adjective
c. I ate apples. on its own

Inflectional values on nouns

The most common kinds of inflection found on nouns include case, person, number, and gender. The latter three of these (person, number, and gender) tend to have close interactions and the group is often referred to as φ-features, named after the Greek letter phi.

Case

Case is used to mark the role a noun phrase plays in a sentence. Some languages do not mark case at all, some mark case on on only some nouns, some mark case on all nouns, and some mark case on determiners. In English, we have case distinctions only on pronouns. We use the nominative case form in the subject position of finite clauses, the genitive case for possessives, and the accusative case form on the objects of active voice clauses. In English, the accusative case also acts as the default and shows up in additional contexts, as well.

(3) a. I saw them.
1SG.NOM   (no gloss for saw) 3PL.ACC

b. They saw me.
3PL.NOM (no gloss for saw) 1SG.ACC

The pronoun paradigm for English is shown in Table 1. In addition to case, English pronouns also have person, number, and gender distinctions, which we will discuss later in this section.

In English, we use the accusative case for both direct and indirect objects, but in many other languages, they use the accusative case only for direct objects, and have another case, the dative case, for indirect objects. German, as shown in (4), is one example of a language that uses dative case. The example in (4) also illustrates how in some languages, including German, case is marked on determiners rather than on the noun itself.

(4) Sie hat dem Mann das Buch geschenkt.

she.NOM has the.M.DAT man the.N.ACC book given

‘She has given the man the book.”

German (Beermann 2001, as cited in Alexiadou et al. 2010: 2).

Some languages have extensive case marking systems that they use in addition to or instead of prepositions. Hungarian is an extreme example of this, with 21 cases, as shown in (5).

(Tompa 1968: 206-209, as cited in Iggesen 2013)

Languages such as English, German, and Hungarian have what is called nominative-absolutive case alignment, which means that we use the same case marker for the subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs, and a different case marker for the objects of transitive verbs. This is shown in Figure 1.

On the other hand, other languages mark the sole argument of intransitive verbs with the same case as the object of transitive verbs, which is called absolutive case. The case that is used to mark only subjects of transitive verbs is called ergative case. Ngarinyman, a Pama-Nyungan language of Australia, is an example of an ergative-absolutive language. For example, sentence (7a) is intransitive, and so the sole argument garu ‘child’ appears in absolutive case. In (7b), when the same verb is used transitively, the subject, yawardarlu ‘horse’ appears in ergative case. The object in (7b) appears only as agreement on the verb.

(Denniss 2023: 142)

We can see another transitive-intransitive pair in (8). Sentence (8a) is intransitive, and the sole argument warlagu ‘dog’ is again marked in absolutive case. In the transitive version, the subject warlagu ‘dog’ is marked with ergative case while the object, janga ‘woman’ is marked in absolutive.

(Denniss 2023: 145-146)

Many languages use a combination of nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive case. This is called split ergativity. The contexts in which each case system is used can be determined by tense, person, or other factors.

The names and meanings of some common cases are listed in Table 3.

Person

Nouns in most languages are categorized as first, second, or third person. First person nouns refer to the person speaking or signing. Second person nouns refer to the person being addressed. Third person nouns are everyone and everything else.

First person plural pronouns typically mean the person speaking or signing and people associated with them, rather than meaning that multiple people are speaking or signing (although, in rare cases, it can mean that, too). On the other hand, second person plural pronouns can either mean that you are addressing a group or that you are referring to the person you are addressing and the people who are associated with them.

Some languages make a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person plural pronouns. Inclusive first person pronouns include the addressee in their reference (meaning ‘us and you’), while exclusive ones do not (meaning ‘us and not you’). Niuean, an Austronesian language spoken on the island of Niue, is an example of a language with inclusive and exclusive pronouns. Niuean’s pronoun paradigm is shown in Table 4.

Some languages also have an obviative, which is sometimes referred to as the fourth person. In languages that have an obviative, only one third person noun (usually the most topical one) will be marked as proximate while the remaining 3rd person nouns will be marked with the obviative, as shown below in (9). In the Oji-Cree example in (9a), the subject is in the first person, so the third person object awaasihs ‘the child (proximate)’ is marked with the proximate, not the obviative. But in (9b), there is a third person subject. Therefore, the third person object awaasihsan ‘the child (obviative)’ is marked in the obviative with the suffix -an. Oji-Cree is an Algonquian language spoken in Manitoba and Northern Ontario.

(9) Oji-Cree (Oxford 2017: 2)

a. Niwaapamaa awaasihs.

ni-waapan-aa awaasihs-∅

1-see-DIR- child-PX.SG

‘I see the child.’

b. Owaapamaan awaasihsan

O-waapam-aa-n awaasihs-an.

3-see-DIR-OBV child-OBV

‘S/he sees the child.’

Number

Number indicates how many instances of the noun there are. In English, we have two number categories: singular and plural, although singular is unmarked. In languages like English which have both a singular and plural, the singular means that there is exactly one while the plural means that there is more than one. The plural marker in English is-s, although there are also a number of nouns which take irregular plurals, such as children, feet, and cacti.

(10) a. cat singular

b. cat-s plural

Some languages also have a dual marker, which indicates that there is exactly two instances of the noun. In languages with a dual marker, singular means exactly one, dual means exactly two, and plural means three or more instances of the noun, as shown in (11).

(11) a. taalib student.M.SG ‘student’

b. taalib-een student.M.DU ‘two students’

c. taalib-iin student.M.PL ‘students’

Gulf Arabic (Holes 1990: 148, as cited in Aikhenvald 2018: 2)

A few languages have a trial, which marks exactly three, and in which case the plural would be used for four or more instances of the noun, as shown in (12).

(12) a. ngayi ‘I (singular)’

b. ngarrgu ‘we two’ (dual)

c. ngarrgunime ‘we three’ (trial)

d. ngagurr ‘we (many)’ (plural)

Ngan’gityemerri (Reid 1990: 118-118, as cited in Aikhenvald 2018: 2)

Even fewer languages go higher than three, but languages with a quadruple or a quintuple form do exist. One is American Sign Language.

Some languages also have a paucal, as shown in (13), which indicates that there are only a few.

(13) a. áine ŋára
woman that:3SG
‘that woman’ (singular)

b. áine ŋara-díaru
woman that-dual
‘those two women’ (dual)

c. áine ŋara-díato
woman that-paucal
‘those few women’ (paucal)

d. áine ŋára-di

woman that-PL

‘those women’ (plural)

Manam (Lichtenberk 1983: 67, as cited in Aikhenvald 2018: 3)

Some nouns arbitrarily take a plural marker no matter how many of the item there are, such as pants, scissors, and (eye)glasses. Often, these are items that typically come in two roughly equal or symmetrical parts, but not all items which consist of a pair require the plural marking, showing that it is an arbitrary grammatical rule that must be encoded in the lexicon. For example, bicycle, eyes, chopsticks, or socks all also typically come in pairs or two parts but have both singular and plural forms.

Gender

In grammar, gender refers to noun classes. In languages with extensive gender systems, all nouns belong to a noun class which is part of the lexical entry of that noun. Other words in the phrase will agree with the gender of the noun. For example, Russian nouns trigger agreement on the verb, as shown in (14). With a masculine noun such as žurnal ‘magazine’ in (14a), the verb appears in the masculine bare form. With a feminine noun such as kniga ‘book’ in (14b), the verb appears with the feminine suffix -a. Finally, with a neuter noun such as pis’mo ‘letter’ in (14b), the verb appears with the neuter suffix -o.

(14) a. Žurnal ležal na stole.

magazine lay.M on table.

‘The magazine laid on the table.’

b. Kniga ležal-a na stole.

book lay-F on table

‘The book lay on the table.’

c. Pis’mo ležal-o na stole.

letter lay-N on table.

‘The letter lay on the table’

Russian (Corbett 2013)

In some languages, the noun class is marked explicitly with a morpheme on the noun, but in other languages, it only shows up on other words that agree with the noun, as with the Russian example in (14).

In SiSwati, a Bantu language spoken in Eswatini and South Africa, the noun class markers are indicated both on the noun and the words that agree with it, such as adjectives. This is illustrated below in (15) for class 2 marker ba- in (15a), class 3 marker li- in (15b) and class 7 marker si- in (15c). Note that, unlike in many Indo-European languages, the noun classes in Bantu languages like SiSwati are not based on gender. Instead all of the human nouns belong to class 1 (when singular) and class 2 (when plural).

(15) a. ba-fati la-ba-k^hulu

Cl2.PL-woman ADJ-Cl2.PL-big

‘big women’

b. li-ɬombe le-li-k^hulu

Cl3.SG-shoulder ADJ-CL3.SG-big

‘big shoulder’

c. si-lwane le-si-k^hulu

Cl7.SG-animal ADJ-Cl7.SG-big

‘big animal’

In some languages, nouns belonging to different classes have distinct inflectional paradigms. This occurs in Russian, for example, as shown in Table 5. Notice how each gender has different suffixes for each case category.

In languages which use grammatical gender, many nouns may have a grammatical gender which corresponds to the semantic gender of the entity to which it refers, but there are also nouns which do not have semantic gender and are assigned grammatical gender arbitrarily. For example, milk does not have semantic gender, and it is arbitrarily assigned masculine gender in French and feminine gender in Spanish, as shown in (16).

(16) a. le lait

DEF.SG.M milk
‘the milk’

French

b. la leche
DEF.SG.F milk
‘the milk’
Spanish

There are are even nouns that have a semantic gender that doesn’t match its grammatical gender. One rather well-known example of this is the German word mädchen ‘girl’ which is semantically female but grammatically neuter.

(17) das mädchen

NOM.DEF.SG.N girl

‘girl’
German

The distinction between semantic and grammatical properties can also be made for other inflectional categories, including number (as we saw earlier for pants and scissors) and animacy. For example, in Meskwaki, an Algonquian language from the Iowa region, most plants use inanimate gender in everyday use, but may be marked with animate gender when they are being spoken to or in religious contexts. This is illustrated below for strawberry in (18).

(18) a. ahteːhimin-i

strawberry-SG.INAN

‘strawberry (inanimate)’

b. ahteːhimin-a

strawberry-SG.AN

‘strawberry (animate), when addressed’

Meskwaki (Dahlstrom 1995: 58)

On the other hand, the noun raspberry is always animate—even in everyday contexts—and cannot appear with inanimate gender.

(19) a. wiːtawiːh-a

raspberry-SG.AN

‘raspberry’
b. *wiːtawiːh-i

raspberry-SG.INAN

Meskwaki (Dahlstrom 1995: 58)

Classifiers

Classifiers are similar to gender, in that nouns are lexically assigned to different groups, often based on some semantic criteria. However, unlike gender, classifiers do not trigger agreement on other words and there may be hundreds of classifiers in use in a given language.

Mandarin is one example of a language that uses noun classifiers. In Mandarin, nouns must always be marked with a classifier when they are combined with a numeral, as shown in (20). The classifiers can indicate either individual objects, as in (20a), or containers, as in (20b) and (20c).

(20) a. liang ben shu

two CL book

‘two boxes’

b. liang xiang shu

two CL:box book

‘two boxes of books’

c. liang ping jiu
two CL:bottle wine
‘two bottles of wine’

Mandarin (Zhang 2007: 45)

Classifiers in Mandarin often encode the shape of the object. For example, the classifier tiao indicates long and rope-like objects. Words such as she ‘snake’, tui ‘leg’, kuzi  ‘pair of pants’, he ‘river’, and bandeng ‘bench’ all appear with the classifier tiao (Zhang 2007: 44). Classifier ke is used for small, solid, and kernel-like objects, such as huangdou ‘soybean’, ya ‘tooth’, dingzi ‘nail’, and zidan ‘bullet’ (Zhang 2007: 46).

Classifiers can also appear on the verb in some languages, to indicate the semantic properties of one of its arguments. This is how handshape classifiers are often used in American Sign Language. It also occurs in spoken language. For example, in the Papuan language Waris, the classifier put- ’round objects’ indicates that the object argument, a coconut, is round.

(21) sa ka-m put-ra-ho-o

coconut 1SG-to VCL:ROUND-get-BENEFACT-IMPERATIVE

‘Give me a coconut’ (lit. coconut to-me round.one-give)

Waris (Aikhenvald 2000: 3)

Derived nouns

There are some derivational morphemes that are common on nouns cross-linguistically, which are summarized in Table 6. But there are also many, many possible derivational meanings that might only show up in a single language. Some derivational morphemes change the part of speech of their stem (as in Table 7 and Table 8, which list derivational morphemes that change verbs and adjectives into nouns), whereas others keep the same part of speech (as in Table 9).

Check yourself!

References and further resources

For a general audience

Canadian Institutes of Health Research. 2023. What is gender? What is sex? https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/48642.html

Conrod, Kirby. 2020. Pronouns 101: Introduction to your loved one’s new pronouns. Medium. https://kconrod.medium.com/pronouns-101-introduction-to-your-loved-ones-new-pronouns-3fef080266d0

Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2000. Sexing the Body. New York: Basic Books.

McCulloch, Gretchen, and Kirby Conrod. 2020. The grammar of singular they: Interview with Kirby Conrod. Lingthusiasm episode 43. https://lingthusiasm.com/post/615600862742609920/lingthusiasm-episode-43-the-grammar-of-singular

Thomas, P.B. 1857. Thou and you. The R.I. Schoolmaster 3 (4): 114-115.

For students

Haspelmath, Martin and Andrea Sims. 2010. Understanding Morphology. London: Hodder Education.

Academic sources

Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2000. Classifiers: A typology of noun categorization devices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2018. Number systems in grammar – position paper. Langugae and Culture Research Centre 2018 Workshop. https://www.jcu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/789700/Number-systems-in-grammar-Position-paper.pdf

Balhorn, Mark. 2004. The rise of epicene they. Journal of English Linguistics 32 (2): 79-166.

Bjorkman, Bronwyn. 2017. Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English. Glossa 2 (1): 80.

Corbett, Greville. 2013. Number of genders. In WALS, ed. Matthew Dryer and Martin Haspelmath. Zenodo. https://wals.info/chapter/30

Dahlstrom, Amy. 1995. Motivation vs. predictability in Algonquian gender. In Papers of the 26th Algonquian Conference, ed. David Pentland. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba. 52-66.

Denniss, Jessica. 2023. Non-conflating roots: The syntax of light verbs and complex predicates in Ngarinyman. PhD thesis, University of Toronto.

Iggesen, Oliver. 2013. Number of cases. In WALS, ed. Matthew Dryer and Martin Haspelmath. Zenodo. https://wals.info/chapter/49

Oxford, Will. 2017. Proximate DP, obviative KP: Balancing the morphosyntax and pragmatics of obviation. Proceedings of the 2017 annual conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association.

Seiter, William. 1980. Issues in Niuean syntax. New York: Garland Press.

Zhang, Hong. 2007. Numeral classifiers in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 16 (1): 43-59.