77
Common nouns
Textbook: pp. 118–119
GoalKnow the meaning and spelling of common nouns.
New words
common noun · turdosh otproper noun · atoqli otof one kind · bir turdagi
Explanation
Nouns that name a whole kind of persons, things or phenomena are common nouns: kitob (book), shahar (city), o‘quvchi (pupil), yomg‘ir (rain). They refer to many things of one kind, so they can be counted and put in the plural: uchta kitob (three books), shaharlar (cities). Unless they begin a sentence they are lowercase. A proper noun picks out one single thing: Toshkent, Navoiy. When a common word is used as a name it becomes a proper noun and is written with quotation marks and a capital: «Vatan» gazetasi (the “Vatan” newspaper).
Worked examples
Shahar (city) is a common noun; Samarqand is a proper noun.
There are three pupils in our school; one of them is Dilnoza.
Class activity
“Common or proper?”: name ten words in class; your partner says the kind of each and gives the reason.
Practice
1
What is a common noun?
A noun naming a whole kind of persons, things or phenomena.
2
Sort: qalam, Zarafshon, daftar, Karim, bog‘.
Common: qalam, daftar, bog‘; proper: Zarafshon, Karim.
3
Put kitob in the plural and link it with a number.
Kitoblar; uchta kitob (three books).
4
Why can common nouns be counted but proper nouns usually not?
A common noun covers many alike things; a proper noun singles out one particular thing.