A noun in its basic form will often consist of a single stem, as in the case of the English nouns cat,

man, table and so on. In many languages nouns can also be formed from other nouns and from words of other types through morphological pro cesses, often involving the addition of prefixes and suffixes. Examples in Engli sh are the verbal nouns formed from verbs by the addition of -ing, nouns formed from verbs using other suffixes such as organization and discovery, agent nouns formed from verbs usually with the suffix -er or -or, as in actor and worker, fe minine forms of nouns such as actress, lioness, nouns formed from adjectives suc h as happiness, and many other types. Nouns may be identical in form to words that belong to other parts of speech, of ten as a result of conversion (or just through coincidence). For example the Eng lish word hit can be both a noun and a verb, and the German Arm/arm can be a nou n or an adjective. In such cases the word is said to represent two or more lexem es. In many languages nouns inflect (change their form) for number, and sometimes fo r case. Inflection for number usually involves forming plural forms, such as cat s and children (see English plural), and sometimes other forms such as duals, wh ich are used in some languages to refer to exactly two of something. Inflection for case involves changing the form of a noun depending on its syntactic functio n languages such as Latin, Russian and Finnish have extensive case systems, with different forms for nominatives (used principally for verb subjects), accusativ es (used especially for direct objects), genitives (used to express possession a nd similar relationships) and so on. The only real vestige of the case system on nouns in Modern English is the "Saxon genitive", where 's is added to a noun to form a possessive. Gender[edit] Main article: Grammatical gender In some languages, nouns are assigned to genders, such as masculine, feminine an d neuter (or other combinations). The gender of a noun (as well as its number an d case, where applicable) will often entail agreement in words that modify or ar e related to it. For example, in French, the singular form of the definite artic le is le with masculine nouns and la with feminines; adjectives and certain verb forms also change (with the addition of -e with feminines). Grammatical gender often correlates with the form of the noun and the inflection pattern it follows ; for example, in both Italian and Russian most nouns ending -a are feminine. Ge nder also often correlates with the sex of the noun's referent, particularly in the case of nouns denoting people (and sometimes animals). Nouns do not have gen der in Modern English, although many of them denote people or animals of a speci fic sex. Classification of nouns[edit] Proper nouns and common nouns[edit] Main article: Proper noun A proper noun or proper name is a noun representing unique entities (such as Ear th, India, Jupiter, Harry, or BMW), as distinguished from common nouns which des cribe a class of entities (such as city, animal, planet, person or car).[7] Countable and uncountable nouns[edit] Main articles: Count noun and Mass noun Count nouns or countable nouns are common nouns that can take a plural, can comb ine with numerals or counting quantifiers (e.g., one, two, several, every, most) , and can take an indefinite article such as a or an (in languages which have su ch articles). Examples of count nouns are chair, nose, and occasion. Mass nouns or uncountable (or non-count) nouns differ from count nouns in precis ely that respect: they cannot take plurals or combine with number words or the a bove type of quantifiers. For example, it is not possible to refer to a furnitur e or three furnitures. This is true even though the pieces of furniture comprisi ng furniture could be counted. Thus the distinction between mass and count nouns should not be made in terms of what sorts of things the nouns refer to, but rat her in terms of how the nouns present these entities.[8][9]

Many nouns have both countable and uncountable uses; for example, beer is counta ble in "give me three beers", but uncountable in "he likes beer". Collective nouns[edit] Main article: Collective noun Collective nouns are nouns that refer to groups consisting of more than one indi vidual or entity, even when they are inflected for the singular. Examples includ e committee, herd, and school (of fish). These nouns have slightly different gra mmatical properties than other nouns. For example, the noun phrases that they he ad can serve as the subject of a collective predicate, even when they are inflec ted for. Concrete nouns and abstract nouns[edit] Further information: Physical body and Abstract object Concrete nouns refer to physical entities that can, in principle at least, be ob served by at least one of the senses (for instance, chair, apple, Janet or atom) . Abstract nouns, on the other hand, refer to abstract objects; that is, ideas o r concepts (such as justice or hatred). While this distinction is sometimes excl usive, some nouns have multiple senses, including both concrete and abstract one s; consider, for example, the noun art, which usually refers to a concept (e.g., Art is an important element of human culture) but which can refer to a specific artwork in certain contexts (e.g., I put my daughter's art up on the fridge). Some abstract nouns developed etymologically by figurative extension from litera l roots. These include drawback, fraction, holdout, and uptake. Similarly, some nouns have both abstract and concrete senses, with the latter having developed b y figurative extension from the former. These include view, filter, structure, a nd key. In English, many abstract nouns are formed by adding noun-forming suffixes (-nes s, -ity, -ion) to adjectives or verbs. Examples are happiness (from the adjectiv e happy), circulation (from the verb circulate) and serenity (from the adjective serene).