What is common noun?

What Does common noun Mean

The nouns are those words in a sentence, can act as subject . These are names that refer to a being or an object. Common , on the other hand, is that which is common or that is not the exclusive property of someone.

The idea of a common noun , therefore, refers to the terms that can be used to name any member of a certain class or species , without taking into account their particularities or specificities.
In order to better understand what a common noun is, it is worth analyzing the characteristics attributed to it by the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and other specialists in linguistics and grammar, among which we would highlight the following:

-Its objective is to refer to things , objects, beings, people, aspects ... that are present in what is the day to day of any individual. That is, they come to allow us to name what are things that are part of our world in an absolutely generic way.

-It can also be called a common name.

-In order for a noun to be considered of this type, it is necessary and essential that it have a sign of identity that it shares with other individuals of the same class.

-Among the set of common nouns that can function as examples are animal, plant, drink, home, school, book, shop, bicycle ...

-A notable difference that exists between common nouns and proper nouns is that the latter run into the fact that its first letter is capitalized. This would be the case, for example, of Córdoba, Elvis Presley, George Clooney ...

"Man" , for example, is a common noun that refers to all male human beings . It does not matter if the person is 23 or 94 years old, if they are 1.65 or 2.10 meters tall or if they live in Bolivia or Australia : if they are male, they can already be named as a man . On the other hand, if we refer to Michael Jordan , Luis Suárez , Tony Blair and Ricky Martin , we will be naming different men (common noun) by their proper names or nouns. That is to say: Michael Jordan is a man andLuis Suárez is a man, but Michael Jordan is not Luis Suárez .
Another example of a common noun is "automobile . " A person may indicate that they like cars in a broad and generic sense. This designation includes all automobiles: large, small, modern, old, etc. On the other hand, if another subject affirms that he likes the Renault Clio , he will be indicating his predilection for a specific car.
Madrid , Barcelona , Seville and Valencia , finally, are proper nouns that refer to specific cities (common noun) that are part of Spain (another proper name, which identifies a country –common noun–).

Another example that can help us to be clear about the difference between a common noun and a proper noun can be the one that we expose below: if we speak of “Spanish actors” we can say that we are using a common noun. However, if we then begin to list these individually, each of them will be a proper noun. Specifically, it will be Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Javier Cámara, Rodolfo Sancho ...

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