Aproper noun is anoun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (Africa;Jupiter;Sarah;Microsoft) as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to aclass of entities (continent, planet, person, corporation) and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class (acontinent, anotherplanet, thesepersons, ourcorporation).[1][2][3][4] Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer togroups of entities considered as unique (theHendersons, theEverglades, theAzores, thePleiades). Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns (theMozart experience; hisAzores adventure), or in the role of common nouns (he's noPavarotti; a few would-beNapoleons). The detailed definition of the term is problematic and, to an extent, governed by convention.[5][6]
A distinction is normally made in current linguistics betweenproper nouns andproper names. By this strict distinction, because the termnoun is used for a class of single words (tree,beauty), only single-word proper names are proper nouns:Peter andAfrica are both proper names and proper nouns; butPeter the Great andSouth Africa, while they are proper names, are not proper nouns. The termcommon name is not much used to contrast withproper name, but some linguists have used it for that purpose. While proper names are sometimes called simplynames, this term is often used more broadly: "An earlier name for tungsten waswolfram." Words derived from proper names are occasionally calledproper adjectives (orproper adverbs, and so on), but not in mainstream linguistic theory. Not every noun phrase that refers to a unique entity is a proper name. For example,chastity is a common noun even though chastity is considered a unique abstract entity (constrasted with the personal nameChastity, which is a proper name).
Few proper names have only one possible referent: there are many places namedNew Haven;Jupiter may refer to a planet, a god, a ship, a city in Florida, or as part of the name of a symphony ("theJupiter Symphony"); at least one person has been namedMata Hari, as well as a racehorse, several songs, several films, and other objects; there are towns and people namedToyota, as well as the company. In English, proper names in their primary application cannot normally be modified by articles or another determiner,[7] although some may be taken to include the articlethe, as inthe Netherlands,the Roaring Forties, orthe Rolling Stones. A proper name may appear to have a descriptive meaning, even though it does not (the Rolling Stones are not stones and do not roll; a woman namedRose is not a flower). If it once had a descriptive meaning, it may no longer be descriptive; a location previously referred to as "the new town" may now have the proper nameNewtown though it is no longer new and is now a city rather than a town.
In English and many other languages, proper names and words derived from them are associated with capitalization, but the details are complex and vary from language to language (Frenchlundi,Canada,un homme canadien,un Canadien; EnglishMonday,Canada,a Canadian man,a Canadian; Italianlunedì,Canada,un uomo canadese,un canadese). The study of proper names is sometimes calledonomastics oronomatology, while a rigorous analysis of thesemantics of proper names is a matter forphilosophy of language.[8]
Occasionally, what would otherwise be regarded as a proper noun is used as a common noun, in which case a plural form and a determiner are possible. Examples are in cases ofellipsis (the three Kennedys =the three members of the Kennedy family) andmetaphor (the new Gandhi, likening a person to Mahatma Gandhi).[9][10]
Current linguistics makes a distinction betweenproper nouns andproper names[a] but this distinction is not universally observed[14] and sometimes it is observed but not rigorously.[b] When the distinction is made, proper nouns are limited to single words only (possibly withthe), while proper names include all proper nouns (in their primary applications) as well asnoun phrases such asthe United Kingdom,North Carolina,Royal Air Force, andthe White House.[c] Proper names can have a common noun or a proper noun as theirhead;the United Kingdom is a proper name with the common nounkingdom as its head, andNorth Carolina is headed by the proper nounCarolina. Especially as titles of works, but also as nicknames and the like, some proper names contain no noun and are not formed as noun phrases (the 1979 filmBeing There;Hi De Ho as a nickname forCab Calloway and as the title ofa 1947 film about him).
Proper names are also referred to (by linguists) asnaming expressions.[16] Sometimes they are called simplynames;[16] but that term is also used more broadly (as in "chair is the name for something we sit on");common name is sometimes used, to make a distinction fromproper name.[17]
Common nouns (likeagency,boulevard,city,day,edition) are frequently used as components of proper names. In such cases the common noun may determine the kind of entity, and a modifier determines the unique entity itself:
Proper nouns, and all proper names, differ from common nouns grammatically in English. They may take titles, such asMr Harris orSenator Harris. Otherwise, they normally only take modifiers that add emotive coloring, such asold Mrs Fletcher, poor Charles, orhistoric York; in a formal style, this may includethe, as inthe inimitable Henry Higgins. They may also takethe in the manner of common nouns in order to establish the context in which they are unique:the young Mr Hamilton (not the old one),the Dr Brown I know; or as proper nouns to define an aspect of the referent:the young Einstein (Einstein when he was young). Theindefinite articlea may similarly be used to establish a new referent:the column was written by a [or one] Mary Price. Proper names based on noun phrases differ grammatically from common noun phrases. They are fixed expressions, and cannot be modified internally:beautiful King's College is acceptable, but notKing's famous College.[18]
As with proper nouns, so with proper names more generally: they may only be unique within the appropriate context. India has a ministry of home affairs (a common-noun phrase) called the Ministry of Home Affairs (its proper name); within the context of India, this identifies a unique organization. However, other countries may also have ministries of home affairs called "the Ministry of Home Affairs", but each refers to a unique object, so each is a proper name. Similarly, "Beach Road" is a unique road, though other towns may have their own roads named "Beach Road" as well. This is simply a matter of the pragmatics of naming, and of whether a naming convention provides identifiers that are unique; and this depends on the scope given by context.
Because they are used to refer to an individual entity, proper names are by their very nature definite; so many regard adefinite article as redundant, and personal names (likeJohn) are used without an article or other determiner. However, some proper names are normally used with the definite article. Grammarians divide over whether the definite article becomes part of the proper name in these cases, orprecedes the proper name.The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language terms theseweak proper names, in contrast with the more typicalstrong proper names, which are normally used without an article.
Entities with proper names that use the definite article include geographical features (the Mediterranean,the Thames), buildings (the Parthenon), institutions (the House of Commons), cities and districts (The Hague,the Bronx), works of literature ( the Bible), newspapers and magazines (The Times,The Economist,the New Statesman),[19] and events (the '45,the Holocaust). In standard use, plural proper names take the definite article (the Himalayas,the Hebrides).[19] Among the few exceptions are the names of certain bands (Heavy Metal Kids,L.A. Guns,Manic Street Preachers).
However, if adjectives are used, they are placed after the definite article ("themighty Yangtze"). When such proper nouns are grouped together, sometimes only a single definite article will be used at the head ("the Nile, Congo, and Niger"). And in certain contexts, it is grammatically permissible or even mandatory to drop the article.
The definite article is not used in the presence of preceding possessives ("Da Vinci's Mona Lisa", "our United Kingdom"), demonstratives ("life inthese United States", "that spectacular Alhambra"), interrogatives ("whose Mediterranean: Rome's or Carthage's?"), or words like "no" or "another" ("that dump isno Taj Mahal", "neo-Nazis wantanother Holocaust").
An indefinite article phrase voids the use of the definite article ("a restored Sistine Chapel", "a Philippines free from colonial masters").
The definite article is omitted when such a proper noun is used attributively ("Hague residents are concerned ...", "... eight pints ofThames water ..."). If a definite article is present, it is for the noun, not the attributive ("the Amazonjungle", "the Bay of Pigsdebacle").
Nouns of address with a proper name also have the article dropped ("jump that shark,Fonz!", "O Pacific Ocean, be pacific for us as we sail on you", "Go,Bears!", "U-S-A!U-S-A!").
Only a single definite article is used where the construction might seem to require two ("the 'TheMatterhorn' at Disneyland is not the actual mountain of that name"). In a grouping, a single definite article at the start may be understood to cover for the others ("the Germany of Hitler, British Empire of Churchill, United States of Roosevelt, and Soviet Union of Stalin").
Headlines, which often simplify grammar for space or punchiness, frequently omit both definite and indefinite articles.
Definite articles used in the title of a map might be omitted in labels within the map itself (Maldives, Sahara, Arctic Ocean, Andes, Elbe; though typically The Wash, The Gambia). It is also customary to drop the definite article in tables (of nations or territories with population, area, and economy, or of rivers by length).
Proper names often have a number of variants, for instance a formal variant (David,the United States of America) and an informal variant (Dave,the United States).[13]
In languages that usealphabetic scripts and that distinguish lower and uppercase, there is usually an association between proper names andcapitalization. In German,all nouns are capitalized, but other words are also capitalized in proper names (not including composition titles), for instance:der Große Bär (the Great Bear,Ursa Major). For proper names, as for several other kinds of words and phrases, the details are complex, and vary sharply from language to language. For example, expressions for days of the week and months of the year are capitalized in English, but not in Spanish, French, Swedish, or Finnish, though they might still be considered proper names. Languages differ in whether most elements of multiword proper names are capitalized (American English hasHouse of Representatives, in whichlexical words are capitalized) or only the initial element (as in SlovenianDržavni zbor, "National Assembly"). InCzech, multiword settlement names are capitalized throughout, but non-settlement names are only capitalized in the initial element, though with many exceptions.
European alphabetic scripts only developed a distinction between upper case and lower case in medieval times so in the alphabetic scripts of ancient Greek and Latin proper names were not systematically marked. They are marked with modern capitalization, however, in many modern editions of ancient texts.
In past centuries,orthographic practices in English varied widely. Capitalization was much less standardized than today. Documents from the 18th century show some writers capitalizing all nouns, and others capitalizing certain nouns based on varying ideas of their importance in the discussion. Historical documents from the early United States show some examples of this process: the end (but not the beginning) of theDeclaration of Independence (1776) and all of theConstitution (1787) show nearly all nouns capitalized; theBill of Rights (1789) capitalizes a few common nouns but not most of them; and theThirteenth Constitutional Amendment (1865) capitalizes only proper nouns.
InDanish, from the 17th century until the orthographic reform of 1948, all nouns were capitalized.[20]
In modernEnglish orthography, it is the norm for recognized proper names to be capitalized.[21] The few clear exceptions includesummer andwinter (contrastJuly andChristmas). It is also standard that most capitalizing of common nouns is considered incorrect, except of course when the capitalization is simply a matter of text styling, as at the start of a sentence or in titles and other headings. SeeLetter case § Title case.
Although these rules have been standardized, there are enough gray areas that it can often be unclear both whether an item qualifies as a proper name and whether it should be capitalized: "theCuban missile crisis" is often capitalized ("Cuban Missile Crisis") and often not, regardless of its syntactic status or its function in discourse. Moststyle guides give decisive recommendations on capitalization, but not all of them go into detail on how to decide in these gray areas if words are proper nouns or not and should be capitalized or not.[d]
Words or phrases that are neither proper nouns nor derived from proper nouns are often capitalized in present-day English:Dr,Baptist,Congregationalism,His andHe in reference to the Abrahamic deity (God). For some such words, capitalization is optional or dependent on context:northerner orNortherner;aboriginal trees butAboriginal land rights in Australia. Whenthe comes at the start of a proper name, as inthe White House, it is not normally capitalized unless it is a formal part of a title (of a book, film, or other artistic creation, as inThe Keys to the Kingdom).
Nouns and noun phrases that are not proper may be uniformly capitalized to indicate that they are definitive and regimented in their application (compare brand names, discussed below).Mountain Bluebird does not identify a unique individual, and it is not a proper name but a so-calledcommon name (somewhat misleadingly, because this is not intended as a contrast with the termproper name). Such capitalization indicates that the term is a conventional designation for exactly that species (Sialia currucoides),[24] not for just any bluebird that happens to live in the mountains.[e]
Words or phrases derived from proper names are generally capitalized, even when they are not themselves proper names.Londoner is capitalized because it derives from the proper nameLondon, but it is not itself a proper name (it can be limited:the Londoner,some Londoners). Similarly,African,Africanize, andAfricanism are not proper names, but are capitalized becauseAfrica is a proper name. Adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and derived common nouns that are capitalized (Swiss inSwiss cheese;Anglicize;Calvinistically;Petrarchism) are sometimes loosely calledproper adjectives (and so on), but not in mainstream linguistics. Which of these items are capitalized may be merely conventional.Abrahamic,Buddhist,Hollywoodize,Freudianism, andReagonomics are capitalized;quixotic,bowdlerize,mesmerism, andpasteurization are not;aeolian andalpinism may be capitalized or not.
Some words or somehomonyms (depending on how a body of study defines "word") have one meaning when capitalized and another when not. Sometimes the capitalized variant is a proper noun (theMoon; dedicated toGod;Smith's apprentice) and the other variant is not (the thirdmoon of Saturn; a Greekgod; thesmith's apprentice). Sometimes neither is a proper noun (aswede in the soup; aSwede who came to see me). Such words that vary according tocase are sometimes calledcapitonyms (although only rarely: this term is scarcely used in linguistic theory and does not appear in theOxford English Dictionary).
In most alphabetic languages, proprietary terms that are nouns or noun phrases are capitalized whether or not they count as proper names.[26] Not all brand names are proper names, and not all proper names are brand names.
In non-alphabetic scripts, proper names are sometimes marked by other means.
InEgyptian hieroglyphs, parts of a royal name were enclosed in acartouche: an oval with a line at one end.[29]
InChinese script, aproper name mark (a kind ofunderline) has sometimes been used to indicate a proper name. In the standardPinyin system of romanization forMandarin Chinese, capitalization is used to mark proper names,[30] with some complexities because of different Chinese classifications of nominal types,[g] and even different notions of such broad categories asword andphrase.[32]
Sanskrit and other languages written in theDevanagari script, along with many other languages using alphabetic orsyllabic scripts, do not distinguish upper and lower case and do not mark proper names systematically.
There is evidence from brain disorders such asaphasia that proper names and common names are processed differently by the brain.[33]
There also appear to be differences in language acquisition.Although Japanese does not distinguish overtly between common and proper names, two-year-old children learning Japanese distinguished between expressions for categories into which objects fall (common) and expressions referring to individuals (proper). When a previously unknown label was applied to an unfamiliar object, the children assumed that the label designated the class of object, regardless of whether the object was animate or inanimate. But if the object already had an established name, there was a difference between inanimate objects and animals:
In English, children employ different strategies depending on the type of referent but also rely on syntactic cues, such as the presence or absence of the determiner "the" to differentiate between common and proper nouns when first learned.[35]
