BJDM 101: ENGLISH FOR MASS COMMUNICATION

Course Lecturer:
(Leonard Lussac Wanyama - +254723805091, [email protected])

Lecture 1: Noun and Pronoun

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Introduction

Although English grammar is seen as something essentially difficult and boring, it fundamentally
facilitates effective and confident speaking and writing. The smallest unit in English language is
the word. All words in English are assigned a grammatical category, which is technically known
as part of speech. Every word that occurs in a sentence belongs to one of the essential word
classes. To demonstrate facility with words in English one needs to be familiar with the word
classes, their characteristics, functions and interactions. This will help you to construct better
sentences.

Word Classes

The following are the main word classes in English: Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Determiner, Verb,
Adverb, Preposition and Conjunction Noun.

A noun can be defined mechanically or organically: Mechanically a noun is any word or phrase
that identifies or constructs a person, an animal, a thing, a concept, an idea, an incident or an
event. In the following sentences the highlighted expressions are noun:

 The editor is writing. T

 The dog is barking.
 Abuja is in Nigeria.
 The newspaper is popular.
 Democracy is a good system of government. T
 The accident is ghastly.
 Chrismas is approaching.

Organically a noun is a word that has the following characteristics:

a) It occurs in a position immediately before and after the verb in a sentence, e.g. The news is
objective. We saw the reporter.
b) It has plural ending s (or some other forms that mean more than one), e.g. newspapers,
churches, children, women. c) It has a possessive form, e.g. the editor’s book, the reporter’s
radio.

d) It can be preceded by a noun-marker such as a, an, the, my, his, this, several and many, e.g. a
television, many mobile phones, his radio.

Forms of a noun

Noun has four grammatical forms, namely, singular, plural, singular possessive and plural
possessive.

a) The singular form

This refers to a single entity or one in numerical value. Here the noun is listed as a
headword in the dictionary, e.g. radio, television, newspaper, editor, reporter, journalist.
b) The plural form
Literally, plural refers to more than one entity. Regular nouns are transformed into plural
by the addition of s or es to the end of the word, e.g. journalists, editors, tomatoes,
mosques. The nouns that form their plural in the manner described above are called
regular nouns. However, some nouns do not form their plural by the simple addition of s
or s, but in a number of ways as presented below. They are called irregular nouns.
i) Some add -en and -ren to the end of the noun as in: ox/ oxen and child/children.
ii) Some change the vowel sound of the word, e.g. man/men; foot/feet.
iii) Some change the final f or fe to ve and then add s, e.g. half/halves; knife/knives.
iv) Some do not add any ending at all, e.g. aircraft, sheep, and deer. v) Some can occur
with or without the plural ending, e.g. fish(s), herring(s).
c) The singular possessive form

Noun occurs in possessive form to establish ownership. In journalistic writings, the singular
possessive form is indicated by an apostrophe followed by -s, e.g. reporter’s, journalist’s,
editor’s. However, if the noun naturally ends in s, the additional s of the possessive is retained
in writing only when the s is pronounced, but dropped when it is not, e.g. James’s, Charles’s;

d) Plural possessive form

In the plural possessive form the apostrophe is placed in front of the plural -s and the
possessive ‘s is dropped. But if the noun forms its plural without adding -s, the possessive ‘s
is retained. Examples of plural possessive are boys’, students’, journalists’, editors’,
reporters’. Therefore, it is structurally faulty to write, childrens’ or peoples’
Classifications of noun

Nouns are very common feature of English language and are principally divided into sub-
classes of their structure as follows.

a) Common and proper nouns - Common noun signifies a whole class of person, places or
things or an unidentified member of that class. It literally refers to something of which there
are many examples, hence very common. Examples of common noun include, team,
committee, audience, country, religion, man and book. Conversely, proper noun denotes an
identified person, place or thing of which there is limited or one example. Conventionally a
proper noun begins with an upper case letter, e.g. Abuja, Nigeria, London, Buhari, John,
Toyota, and River Niger.

b) Countable and uncountable nouns - A noun that is preceded by the determiner (a or an)
and can exist in plural form is grammatically classified as countable noun. This is because it
can make a clear distinction between the singular and the plural form, e.g. city, gate, foot,
lady, journalist, television and university. Uncountable on the other hand is not preceded by
a determiner and does not exist in plural form. Because it cannot make distinction between
the singular and plural forms, it is grammatically treated as singular, e.g. information, luggage,
equipment, under wear, poverty, education, sugar, petrol.

c) Concrete and abstract nouns- Concrete noun refers to things that are perceivable to the
human sense organs, e.g. bag, ball, newspaper, mobile phone, television and radio. While
abstract noun represents things that are not perceivable through human sense but exist as
ideas and concepts in human mind or psyche, e.g. anger, beauty, courage, loyalty, democracy,
freedom, wisdom, Christianity, fear, Marxism and greed. Most concrete nouns are countable
while most abstract nouns are uncountable.

e) Collective nouns- A collective noun is a singular noun that refers to a group of people or
things when the whole group is being considered, e.g. a pack of wolves, a flock of sheep,
a herd of cattle, a school of whales, a fleet of ships, a pride of lions, a team of reports, a
committee of friends. e)
f) Compound nouns - Compound nouns are fixed expressions that are made up of more
than one word and functions as a noun in a sentence or clause. Most compound nouns
are derived from the combination of two nouns or a noun and an adjective. Compound
nouns are written fundamentally in variety of styles. Some compound nouns are written
as two words separately, e.g. estate agent, class captain, news editor, script writer, event
manager and public relations. Others are separated by a hyphen, e.g. pen-friend, tea-
spoon, girl-friend, sport-wear and hip-hop. Some are also written as one word, e.g.
housewife, newspaper, sweetheart, chairman, airplane, aircraft, workshop and farmland.
The style of writing compound nouns adopted and the observance of consistency is
paramount in journalist contents. For example, babysitter can also be written as baby-
sitter, or spinoff as spinoff depending on the in house style. Other examples of compound
nouns are: Air conditioner, bank account, blood pressure, coffee jug, frying fan, health
care, income tax, letter-box, make-up, swimming pool teapot, washing machine, news
camera and radio station. The plural forms of compound noun vary with the type of words
they are made up of. If the final word of a compound noun is countable, the plural form
of the countable noun is used when the compound noun is made plural, as in police
stations, swimming pools, coffee jugs, and letter-boxes.
Structural functions of nouns

In English grammar theory noun performs the following eight functions in English sentences:

a) As subject of the verb - The subject performs the action of the verb or in the state
identified by the verb, e.g. John bought a book, Ahmad became a journalist.
b) As direct object of the verb - The direct object receives the action of the verb, e.g. The
news director congratulated the reporter.
c) As indirect object of the verb - The indirect object is the element which benefits from the
action described by the verb, e.g. The editor lent a pen to the reporter.
d) As subject compliment - The subject compliment and the subject refer to the same
person or thing, e.g. The presenter is my friend. The presenter became the editor.
e) As object compliment - The object compliment and the object refer to the same person
or thing, e.g. the radio station considered the editor a hero.
f) As prepositional compliment - The prepositional compliment is required by the
preposition to form prepositional phrase and complete the meaning, e.g. The news
reporter placed the recorder on the table.
g) As a modifier of another noun - The noun functions as adjective to qualify another
noun,e.g. journalists are excluded from the Chrismas holiday.
h) As an appositive - An appositive is noun or noun phrase used alongside another noun or
noun phrase to further explain it, e.g. The radio presenter, Mr Joseph, is a generous
person.

Common journalistic usage errors

The following constitutes the frequent areas of the misuse of nouns by journalists, public relation
practitioners and advertisers.

a) Use of uncountable nouns in similar contexts as countable nouns.

It has been emphasized that uncountable nouns do exist in plural form because they do not
make distinction between singular and plural. Conventionally they are treated as singular;
consequently, they should not occur with the following:
i. Plural ending s or es;
ii. Indefinite article a or an;
iii. Numerals one, ten, hundred etc.;
iv. Quantifiers such as many, few, several.
The following are some of the frequent uncountable nouns erroneously made plural, or misused
by journalists in Kenya:

Advice, furniture, luggage, Ammunition, hardware, offspring, Baggage, information, personnel

Behaviour, jargon, slang, Electorate, jewellery, software, Equipment, junk, underwear,

However, for journalists to use or refer to some specific instances of uncountable nouns, they
can use partitives - These are words or phrases that identify or denote part of a collective whole,
e.g. a piece of advice, instead of an advice, an item of furniture instead of two furniture.

b) Omission of determiners before singular nouns

As a grammatical rule, a determiner should always precede the singular form of a countable
noun. It is evident from journalistic contents that determiners are frequently omitted as in
the following examples:
 The news editor was offered ( ) special seat at the occasion. (a)
 The principal is reading ( ) newspaper. (a)
 The lecturer gave the students ( ) assignment. (an)

Pronouns
A pronoun is a word used instead of a noun or noun phrase to essentially avoid the unnecessary
repetition of the noun or noun phrase throughout the sentence. In English grammar the noun or
noun phrase that a pronoun refers to or replaces is known as its antecedent.

Classifications of pronoun

Pronouns are classified into the following sub-classes:

a) Personal pronouns - The personal pronouns are used instead of the names of persons and
things. They are structurally refered to as personal because their unique forms locate the
noun they stand for as the person speaking
 (known as the 1st person: I, me, we, my, us, our),
 the person spoken to (known as the 2nd person: you, your, yours),
 and the person or thing spoken about (known as the 3rd person: he, she, it, him, his, her,
they, them, its)
b) Interrogative pronouns - The words who, whose, whom, which and what are pronouns used
to verify or question the veracity, accuracy and precision of events and issues, hence are
called interrogative pronouns. for example,
 Who reported the news?
  What is the news all about?
 Which newspaper reported the story?
c) Demonstrative pronouns - Demonstrative pronouns are used to indicate or point out to
persons and things we meant to emphasize. They include, this, that, those, these, e.g.
 These are the representatives of the union of journalists.
 This is the newspaper reporter.
d) Indefinite pronouns - These are pronouns that are used to refer to people or things without
specifying exactly who or what they are. Indefinite pronouns could be singular, plural or both.
Singular indefinite pronouns consist of: anybody, anyone, anything, everyone, everybody,
each, ourselves, yourself, himself, herself and themselves, e.g.
 The editor blamed himself for the controversy generated by the news.
e) Reciprocal pronouns - These pronouns are used to indicate dual relationship between two or
more people. They can also be used to an idea of reciprocity. The only reciprocal pronouns in
English are each other and one another. The latter is used to indicate mutual relation
between two people or elements while the former is used for more than two people, e.g.
 The editors have been helping each other since their appointment.
 The news reporters blamed one another for being late at the press conference.
f) Relative pronoun - When pronouns are used to introduce certain clauses which they relate
to some other words in the sentence, they are called relative pronouns. They include: who,
whom, whose, which, that and whoever, e.g.
 This is the reporter who interviewed the governor.

Functions of pronouns
The noun or noun phrase that a pronoun represents is technically known as antecedent. All
pronouns in a sentence should agree with their antecedents in four important ways: number,
gender, person and case.

a) Number in grammar denotes the singular or plural form of a noun or noun phrase, e.g. I, you,
she, he, it (singular) or we, you, they (plural).
b) Gender indicates whether the pronoun is used as male (masculine), female (feminine) or
neutral (neuter) antecedent, e.g.
 she is a news editor (feminine),
 he is a news editor (masculine),
 they are news editors (neuter).
c) Person emphasizes the speaker (s) (1st person), the listener (s) (2nd person) or the element
referred to in the context (3rd person). For example,
 I am a journalist,
 you are a journalist,
  and he is a journalist.
d) Case refers to whether the pronoun is used as the subject or object of the sentence, or to
indicate possession. Principally there are three cases in English grammar, namely, the
subjective case, the objective case and the possessive case. Pronouns in English have
distinctive of patterns and forms for each specific case as exemplified below:

Subjective case objective case possessive case

I me my/mine

We us our/ours

The usage convention is to use subjective case pronouns in subject and subject compliment
positions in the sentence. Also use objective case pronouns in object positions or after
prepositions. But use possessive case pronouns only to demonstrate ownership or association
with some elements in the sentence. For example,

 Adamu is a journalist (he as subjective case pronoun),

 I called the journalist (him/her as objective case pronouns),
 and this is the journalist’s book (his/her as possessive pronouns)

Common journalistic usage errors

The following are some of the glaring areas in which journalists violet the structure of pronouns.

a) Disharmony between the pronoun and its antecedent in case - As a rule, a pronoun must
agree with its antecedent in number, gender, person and case as in the following examples:
 The editor sent Ali and I to the press conference. (me).
 The news reporter invited my friend and myself to discuss the issue with he and his editor.
(me; him).
b) Using reflexive pronouns as reciprocal pronouns - It should be noted that reflexive pronouns
indicate that somebody has acted on him/herself while reciprocal pronouns emphasize
mutual relationship between two or more elements in the sentence. Consequently, the two
are not similar and should not be used interchangeably. In the following examples one of the
pronouns overlapped with the other:
 The editor and the reporter contacted themselves before the story was published.
(each other).
 Fellow reporters and editors let us be familiar with ourselves. (one another).
c) Using pronouns without antecedents - The antecedent of a pronoun should always be
apparent in the context of its use. However, indefinite pronouns can be used without any
antecedent. In the following examples the pronoun does not have any antecedent hence the
expression is grammatically faulty:
 Hello, they are talking to you. In this sentence the pronoun they does not have any
antecedent and the sentence is confusing. If the antecedent is not important the
sentence should be recast to (hello you are being called).
d) Using plural they for singular antecedents - In African and Asian tradition, the culture of
respect for elders and authorities appreciates and admits the use of plural personal pronouns
such as (they) in reference to a singular entity. This constitutes a fundamental flaw in English
grammar. Consider the dialogue below:
Reporter: They are calling you, sir.
Editor: Who?
Reporter: The Managing Director.

In the first sentence the pronoun does not have any antecedent and there is no agreement
in number between the pronoun and the antecedent in the last sentence.

e) Using the contracted form it’s for the possessive form its - The two should neither overlap
nor be used interchangeably. For example, the Daily newspaper has lost it’s identity as a
popular newspaper in the country.