Nouns are the core of the sentence. Once you understand how nouns work, you can then identify and edit out errors like articles, subject verb agreement, singular/plurals and gerunds.
Noun: A person, place, thing, or idea
• A noun often comes before a verb (subject)
Children play.
• A noun often comes after a determiner like "a", "the", "some", 'his", "our", or "this".
The dog barked.
• A noun can come after an adjective.
The angry dog barked.
• A noun can come after a verb (object of the verb)
The girl gave cookies to her friend.
• A noun comes after a preposition (object of preposition)
She keeps papers in boxes.
You can find more information and practice with word form in the resources boxes to the right.
Suffixes are the endings on words. For example, the underlined parts of the following words are suffixes.
tasteless
difference
categorize
sadly
The suffix controls the part of speech. For example, the following words all come from the root word "create". Notice the part of speech of each word.
create verb
creative adjective
creation noun
creatively adverb
Like the example creative, most words ending in –ive are adjectives.
Like the example creation, most words ending in – tion are nouns.
Like the example creatively, most words ending in –ly are adverbs.
You can find more information and practice with word form in the resources boxes to the right.
Noun suffixes
|
suffix |
examples of nouns |
|---|---|
|
-age |
advantage, average, usage |
|
-al |
funeral, ritual, animal |
|
-ance/-ence |
advance, chance, absence, evidence |
|
-dom |
boredom, fandom, wisdom |
|
-ee |
coffee, degree, employee |
|
-er/-or |
foreigner, employer, animator, advisor |
|
-hood |
sisterhood, parenthood, womanhood |
|
-ism |
criticism, activism, feminism |
|
-ist |
feminist, activist, realist |
|
-ity/-ty |
ability, activity, nationality |
|
-ment |
amusement, judgment, comment |
|
-ness |
happiness, handiness, harmlessness |
|
-ry |
rivalry, battery, eatery |
|
-ship |
friendship, citizenship, ownership |
|
-sion/-tion |
collision, ambition, connection |
You can find more information and practice with word form in the resources boxes to the right.
Created by: Antonio Su
Special thanks to: Cecil Klassen and Megumi Taguchi
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