ABSTRACT
Nouns are also classifi ed into different subcategories. This is largely because certain properties of words which belong to this category can only be captured if these subcategories are recognised. For instance the oddity of sentences such as (1b) and (2b) can be accounted for if we differentiate between nouns on a semantic basis: animate ( John ) versus inanimate ( the stick ) and count ( chair ) versus non-count ( furniture ) respectively. The restriction in (1) is that the adjective careful is a property which can only be predicated of an animate subject, while the restriction in (2) is that only count nouns can be complement to a numeral determiner. (Note: the exclamation mark in (1b) signals that the construction is semantically ill-formed.)
(1) a. John is being careful b. ! The stick is being careful
(2) a. Mary bought two chairs b. *Mary bought two furniture
Two further subcategories of nouns should also be recognised: proper and common nouns and concrete and abstract nouns. These distinctions are motivated, on the one hand, by the contrast between (3a) and (3b), which shows that, without a modifying element present, a determiner can occur with a common noun but not a proper noun, and, on the other hand, by the contrast between (4a) and (4b), which shows that a concrete noun can be a complement to a verb like break whereas an abstract noun like honesty cannot.
