Collective nouns in english contents introduction

Chapter II. The functions of nouns
2.1. The functions of nouns
The head of a noun phrase either takes the form of a noun or a pronoun. The head determines such features of the noun phrase as number (singular or plural) and gender (masculine, feminine or neuter). In terms of meaning, the head determines what kind or type of entity the whole noun phrase refers to.
Thus, the following noun phrases have the same noun, car, as head and therefore refer to the same kind of entity, namely some kind of car. The exact reference of the full noun phrases differ because of the different determiners and modifiers that accompany the head.
(1) the blue car that Lisa bought
(2) the yellow car that is parked outside my office
(3) a French car with four-wheel steering
Nouns can be grouped into different classes based on their grammatical properties.
Proper nouns and common nouns
A first major distinction among nouns is that between proper nouns and common nouns. Simply put, proper nouns are nouns that functions as names of people, cities, countries, etc. Typical examples are: Bill, Stockholm, and Denmark. All other nouns are common nouns, e.g. car, water, and democracy.
The distinction is relevant to capitalisation. Thus, proper nouns always start with a capital letter.
More on capitalisation
Since proper nouns are used to refer to unique individuals, places, and so on, they do not show a distinction between definite and indefinite forms, which for common nouns is signalled by the definite and indefinite articles. Most proper nouns occur without an article, like Sweden, Lund, Bill, etc. However, there are also classes of poper nouns which have a definite article as part of their name. Examples include names of daily newspapers (The Times, the Observer, etc.), names of theatres, museums, hotels, restaurants, and similar establishments (the Metropolitan, the British Museum, the Hilton, the Ritz, etc. If the name of such an establishment consists of a noun or noun phase in the genitive, then even these proper nouns occur without an article (McDonald's, Sloppy Joe's).
Proper nouns in the plural form another important class that occur with the definite article. Typical examples include names of mountain ranges (the Himalayas), groups of islands (The Canaries), and others (the Midlands, the Neherlands, the Balkans).
Countable and uncountable nouns
Common nouns may be divided into countable and uncountable nouns. As the terminology suggests, countable nouns can combine with numerals like one, two, three, etc., whereas uncountable nouns cannot. Moreover, uncountable nouns are always singular, whereas most countable nouns may be either singular or plural. A number of properties related to this basic difference distinguish the two classes of nouns. The following table lists the most important ones, and provides examples of both types of noun. (The asterisk * marks an example as ungrammatical.)