The noun has certainsyntactical characteristics.

The chief syntactical functions of the noun in the sentence are those of the subject and the object. But it may also be used as an attribute or a predicative.

¹ Gender, i. e. the distinction of nouns into masculine, feminine and neuter, may be expressed lexically by means of different words or word-compounds:

father — mother

boy — girl

man — woman

gentleman — lady

husband — wife

boy-friend — girl-friend

cock-sparrow — hen-sparrow

man-servant — maid-servant

 

Very often personal or possessive pronouns indicate the gender of the noun. (See Chapter IV.)

 

The sun was rising in all his splendid beauty. (Dickens) (SUB­JECT)

Troy and Yates followed the tourists. (Heym) (OBJECT)

He (Bosinney) was an architect... (Galsworthy) (PREDICATIVE)

Mary brought in the fruit on a tray and with it a glass bowl, and a blue dish... (Mansfield) (ATTRIBUTE; the noun glass is used in the common case)

The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from his father's yacht. (Mansfield) (ATTRIBUTE; the noun father is used in the genitive case)

A noun preceded by a preposition (a prepositional phrase) may be used as attribute, prepositional indirect object, and adverbial modifier.

To the left were clean panes of glass. (Ch. Bronte) (ATTRI­BUTE)

Bicket did not answer, his throat felt too dry. He had heard of the police. (Galsworthy) (OBJECT)

She went into the drawing-room and lighted the fire. (Mansfield) (ADVERBIAL MODIFIER)

"Stop everything, Laura!" cried Jose in astonishment. (Mans­field) (ADVERBIAL MODIFIER)

The noun is generally associated with the article. Because of the comparative scarcity of morphological distinctions in English in some cases only articles show that the word is a noun.

A noun can be modified by an adjective, a pronoun, by another noun or by verbals.