nonnouns

Nonnouns is a linguistic label used to refer to words that do not function as nouns within a language’s grammar. It is not a formal universal category, but a convenient way to discuss the rest of the lexicon in contrast to nouns. In this sense, nonnouns include a wide range of parts of speech that can appear in noun phrases or clauses but do not themselves behave as nouns in typical syntax.

The nonnoun category covers most major parts of speech, including verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, determiners, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. In many languages, numerals and particles may also be treated as nonnouns when they do not take on noun-like functions. Because word class can be context-dependent, a word sometimes shifts between noun-like and nonnoun use; for example, an adjective may be nominalized to function as a noun in a given construction, altering its classification in practice.

In cross-linguistic work, the nonnoun concept helps describe how different languages organize the rest of the lexicon beyond nouns. It allows researchers to discuss which items can head noun phrases, which modify or relate to nouns, and which operate as independent predicates or modifiers. The term is especially useful in corpus annotation, language acquisition studies, and computational linguistics, where clearly separating nouns from other elements aids parsing and analysis.

Examples in English illustrate the idea: run is a verb (nonnoun), blue is an adjective (nonnoun in attributive use), the is a determiner (nonnoun), in is a preposition (nonnoun), and is a conjunction (nonnoun), wow is an interjection (nonnoun).