Nouns

Nouns serve from the syntactic point of view as subject and object. They name living creatures, animals or non-living creatures. Nouns are words that are used to refer to people, objects, creatures, places, qualities, phenomena and abstract ideas.

Classes of nouns

1. common,
2. proper.

We use articles to express reference (a for unspecified and the for specified). Proper nouns are always capitalized (unique), so no definite article is in front of them. They begin with a capital letter. But sometimes it is possible to use an article:

“Picasso (painter)   - a Picasso (painting)”
“He’s a Picasso.     - he resembles Picasso in some way.”
“Are you Mrs. Dlhá?  - Yes, but I am not the Dlhá you are looking for.”
“A Lenka phoned you. - don’t know who she is (made indefinite)”.
“president (common); the president = President”

Common nouns in specific reference are treated as proper nouns.

The noun categories

1. number:           singular or plural (a noun shows a contrast between one and more than one)
2. countability:        shows the contrast between countable and uncountable nouns (shows the capability of nouns of being countable or uncountable)
3. determination:       signifies the contrast between determent and undeterment nouns (definiteness and indefinitness)
4. gender:           masculine, feminine and neuter
5. case:               the contrast between two cases in English is shown by the common case or genitive