Noun

A Noun is a word used as the name of a person, place, or thing. The word thing
includes all objects that we can see, hear, taste, touch, or smell; and something
that we can think of, but cannot perceive by the senses.
 Quaid-e-Azam was a great leader.
 The rose smells sweet.
 The sun shines bright.
 His courage won him honour.
There are several types of noun and they are as follows.
i. Common noun and proper noun
ii. Abstract noun and concrete or Material noun
iii. Countable and uncountable noun
iv. Collective noun
v. Irregular forms

Common Noun and Proper Noun
A common noun is a common name that can be applied to vast number of objects,
it refers to things in general while proper noun specifies a specific person place or
thing. Let’s have a look at these two words (city/Islamabad). City is a general
term that can be applied to any urban area while Islamabad refers to specific city
that is capital of Pakistan.
Here are few examples that can further clarify the concept of common and proper
noun.
 Sidra is a Proper Noun, while girl is a Common Noun.
 Hamid is a Proper Noun, while boy is a Common Noun.
Lahore is a Proper Noun, while city is a Common Noun.
Pakistan is a Proper Noun, while country is a Common Noun.
The word girl is a Common Noun, because it is a name common to all girls, while
Sidra is a Proper Noun because it is the name of a particular girl. Similar is the
case of other examples mentioned above.

Abstract and Concrete/Material Noun
Another demarcation of noun is that of abstract and Concrete/Material noun.
An abstract noun is a noun which refers to ideas, qualities, and conditions - things
that cannot be seen or touched and things which have no physical reality,
e.g. truth, danger, happiness, time, friendship, humour. On the other hand a
concrete/material noun is a noun which refers to people and to things that
exist physically and can be seen, touched, smelled, heard, or tasted. Examples
include dog, building, coffee, tree, rain, beach, and tune.
Abstract Nouns are formed:
(1) From Adjectives; as,
(2) Kindness from kind; honesty from honest.
(3) Most of the countable nouns are formed from adjectives.
(4) From Verbs: as,
(5) Obedience from obey; growth from grow.
(6) From Common Nouns; as,
(7) Childhood from child; slavery from slave.

Countable and uncountable Noun

What is the grammatical difference between banana and milk? You can say a

banana/three bananas but you can't say *a milk/three Milks. We use the terms

countable and uncountable for these two major classes of noun. As a broad

definition, countable nouns can be counted as they form singular or plural. For

example boy/boys, girl/girls, book/books. On contrary uncountable nouns cannot

be counted and take only singular verbs. e.g. milk, oil, sugar, gold, honesty.

Collective Noun Collective nouns refer to groups and so are also called group nouns. They can take a singular or plural verb, accordingly as the members of the group are seen as united or separate. e.g.  The Jury is intact.  The Jury are of different minds on the issue. American formal English, however, prefers the singular verb. Other collective nouns include army, audience, family, flock, group, jury, staff, team, company. Please note that animal groups such as herd, pride, gaggle, etc. do not automatically fall under this category in ELT, though the term 'collective noun/name' is sometimes used for them.

 Irregular Forms

Nouns which usually cause problems are

1) Nouns always plural, e.g. clothes, police, cattle, goods, arms

2) Pair nouns, e.g. trousers, scissors, glasses (spectacles), scales (weighing).

Some speakers treat some of these as singular, e.g. The scissors is_ over

there; Have you got a pliers? However, the standard usage is are and a pair

of with these (a pair of scales is rare, though, and the AmE a scale may

displace the plural).

3) Nouns ending in 's' which are singular or plural (with some the meaning

may be different for singular and plural), e.g. means, series, barracks,

headquarters.

4) Other nouns which are singular or plural, e.g. sheep, deer, aircraft.

5) Uncountable or plural, e.g. travel(s) (plural usually refers to a person's

time/experience travelling, usually for pleasure), politics (plural usually

refers to political beliefs, operations).

6) -/to -ves, e.g. knife-knives, shelf-shelves, but roof-roofs, and hoof-hoofs/hooves, etc.

Noun Gender

You know that living beings are of either the male or the female sex. A noun that

denotes a male animal is said to be of the Masculine Gender. A noun that denotes

a female animal is said to be of the Feminine Gender. However there are certain

nouns that are gender neutral, these words do not carry sense of gender with them

therefore they are called gender neutral

Number of Noun

A noun can denote two numbers, either singular or plural. A Noun that denotes

one person or thing is said to be in the Singular Number; as, Boy, girl, cow, bird,

tree, book, and pen.

A noun that denotes more than one person or thing is said to be in the Plural

Number; as, Boys, girls, cows, birds, trees, books, and pens. 

Functions of Noun in Sentence

A noun can function as a subject, object and direct object of verb in sentence. It

can also serve as object of preposition. Look at these examples for further

understanding of subject, object and indirect object.

Examples:

 Ali likes to play football.

 Aslam ate some cake.

In these two sentences you can see that there are four nouns. ‘Ali and Aslam’ are

subject of sentences as they are the doers of an action. They are performing an

action. While ‘Football and cake’ are the nouns that receive the action of verb

directly thus they act as direct object of verb.

The indirect object like the direct object also incorporates the thinking ‘the thing

being acted upon’. The indirect object involves the concept of a giving way or

acted upon in. for example:

 Rehan threw a cricket ball.

In this sentence the subject is Rehan and the direct object is cricket ball.

Look at another the similar construction:

 Rehan threw me a cricket ball.

Here in this sentence the direct recipient of the cricket ball is pronoun me,

which serves the part of the indirect object. Now look at another example in

order to understand the concept.

 Hina gave a painting to Ali. 

In this sentence the subject is Hina, the direct object is painting and Ali stands out as indirect object.