21. What nouns are called countable and uncountable?
Countable nouns can be "counted", they have a singular and plural form.
A book, two books, three books
Uncountable nouns (also called mass nouns or noncount nouns) cannot be counted, they are not separate objects. This means you cannot make them plural by adding -s, because they only have a singular form.
Water, work, information, coffee, sand
22. What groups of concrete nouns do you know?
Concrete nouns may be further subdivided into:
“thing” nouns – denoting single physical objects (animate or inanimate) having a certain shape and measurements
boy, girl, dog, table, chair
Mass nouns – denoting a physical substance having no particular shape or measurements, “materials”
bread, butter, sugar, tea, copper, timber
Collective nouns – denoting a group of objects (animate or inanimate) or paired objects
family, crew, jury, shorts
23. What groups of uncountable nouns do you know?
1. Singular Tantum These nouns generally have no grammatical ending. To this group belong:
common concrete “mass” nouns
bread, butter, sugar, tea, copper
common abstract nouns
news, knowledge, information, progress, advice
proper concrete “thing” nouns
John, White Fang, London, the Thames;
proper abstract nouns
the Renaissance, the Reformation.
2. Pluralia Tantum
These nouns generally have the ending “-s” (“-es”). To this group there belong:
common concrete collective nouns
clothes, greens, savings, goods, dominoes
common abstract collective nouns
tactics, politics
proper concrete collective nouns
the British Isles, the Azores, the Andes
24. How do countable nouns form their plural from? The majority of countable nouns form their plural form by adding ending “-s” to the singular. If the singular form ends in “-y” preceded by a consonant, the “”-y” will be changed for “-i” and ending “-es” will follow (family – families).
25. Irregular plural noun.
26. What nouns can be countable or uncountable depending upon their meaning in the context?
To this group there belong: 1. Common concrete collective nouns
family, crew, committee.
If they denote all the people forming the collective taken together, they function as countables:
This family is large. These families are large.
If they denote members of the collective viewed separately, they are uncountable and function as Pluralia Tantum.
My family are early risers.
Among collective nouns there is a group of words which always denote members of the group taken separately (“names of multitude”) :
police, gentry, cattle, poultry, etc.
They always function as Pluralia Tantum.
Some collective nouns always denote the collective as one undivided whole and thus are Singular Tantum:
the bourgeoisie, the aristocracy, the peasantry, machinery, foliage.
2. Abstract nouns denoting feelings, emotions, qualities:
love, hatred, joy, pleasure, strength, weakness.
This nouns are generally used as Singularia Tantum. But when they indicate special manifestations of the abstract ideas, they become countables.
He hates weakness.
She had a weakness for good clothes.
She had many small vanities and weaknesses.
Abstract nouns ending in “-ics” (mathematics, phonetics) when used as names of sciences often agree with the verb in the singular.
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics.