Nouns and Pronouns
ICSE Class 6 · English · Chapter 3
What this chapter covers
- Kinds of nouns
- Number of nouns
- Gender of nouns
- Case of nouns
- Pronouns in the proper case
- Reflexive and emphatic pronouns
- Pronoun-antecedent agreement
- Shifts in pronoun number and person
Key points
- A noun names a person, place, animal, thing or idea.
- The five kinds of nouns are common, proper, collective, material and abstract.
- Number shows one (singular) or more than one (plural); learn the irregular plurals by heart.
- The four genders are masculine, feminine, common and neuter.
- The three cases are nominative (subject), objective (object) and possessive (owner).
- A pronoun takes the place of a noun and changes its form for each case: I, me, mine.
- Use I, he, she, we, they as subjects and me, him, her, us, them as objects.
- Possessive pronouns such as its and hers never take an apostrophe.
- Reflexive pronouns turn the action back on the doer; emphatic pronouns only add stress.
- A pronoun agrees with its antecedent in number, gender and person.
- Everyone, each, nobody and someone are singular; both, few, many and several are plural.
- Keep the same person and number for the same antecedent; avoid needless shifts.
Questions answered
Name the kind of each noun: herd, honesty, Lucknow, silver.
herd is collective; honesty is abstract; Lucknow is proper; silver is material.
Write the plurals of baby, knife, tooth and box.
babies, knives, teeth, boxes.
Give the feminine of nephew, prince and horse.
niece, princess, mare.
In "The farmer's son fed the cow", give the case of farmer's, son and cow.
farmer's is possessive; son is nominative; cow is objective.
Choose the correct word: "The coach praised Aman and (I / me)."
me, because the pronoun is the object of praised.
Is the -self word reflexive or emphatic? "I myself saw the comet."
Emphatic. "I saw the comet" is still complete, so myself only adds stress.
Correct the sentence: "Somebody has left their umbrella in the bus."
"Somebody has left his or her umbrella in the bus." Somebody is singular.
Correct the shift: "If you practise every day, one will improve quickly."
"If you practise every day, you will improve quickly."