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proper nouns
names of people and places
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common nouns
everything other than people and places
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count nouns
- individuated entities that can be counted (e.g. one book, two dogs, three houses)
- singular count nouns require determiner
- occur with many
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mass nouns
- continuous substances and cannot be counted (e.g. sawdust, air, etc.)
- do not require determiner
- occur with much
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animate nouns
denote living things (often restricted to humans and certain animals)
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inanimate nouns
denote non-living things
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gender (noun class)
divides nouns into sub-sets, masculine, feminine, and neuter (non-animate)
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grammatical gender
nouns with non-animate referents are assigned to masculine and feminine classes w/o regard for actual gender associations
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lexical aspect/aktionsart
sub-category for verbs denoting event type
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states
unbounded period of time (e.g. he likes ice cream)
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achievements
occur at single moment, with immediate end point (e.g. he caught the ball)
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activities
go on for period of time, with no defined end point (e.g. they ran on the track for an hour)
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accomplishments
go on for period of time, with defined end point (e.g. they ran to the track in an hour)
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attributive adjectives
occur in front of noun (e.g. the tall man)
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predicative adjectives
occur with copula or similar verb (e.g. the man is tall)
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individual-level adjectives
permanent properties (e.g. intelligent)
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stage-level adjectives
temporary properties (e.g. tired)
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bare nouns
nouns without determiners
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