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WORDS AND WORD GROUPS USED AS NOUNS.
The noun may borrow from any part of
speech, or from any expression.
19. Owing to the scarcity
of distinctive forms, and to the consequent flexibility of English speech,
words which are usually other parts of speech are often used as nouns; and
various word groups may take the place of nouns by being used as nouns.
Adjectives, Conjunctions,
Adverbs.
(1) Other parts of speech used as nouns:—
The great, the wealthy, fear thy
blow.—Burns.
Every why hath a wherefore.—Shakespeare.
When I was young? Ah, woeful
When!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and
Then!
—Coleridge.
(2) Certain word groups used like single
nouns:—
Too swift arrives as tardy as too
slow.—Shakespeare.
Then comes the "Why, sir!" and the "What then,
sir?" and the "No, sir!" and the "You don't see your way through
the question, sir!"—Macaulay
(3) Any part of speech may be considered merely as a word,
without reference to its function in the sentence; also titles of books are
treated as simple nouns.
The it, at the beginning, is ambiguous, whether
it mean the sun or the cold.—Dr BLAIR
In this definition, is the word "just," or
"legal," finally to stand?—Ruskin.
There was also a book of Defoe's called an "Essay on
Projects," and another of Dr. Mather's called "Essays to do
Good."—B. FRANKLIN.
20. It is to be remembered,
however, that the above cases are shiftings of the use, of words rather
than of their meaning. We seldom find instances of complete conversion
of one part of speech into another.
When, in a sentence above, the terms the great,
the wealthy, are used, they are not names only: we have in mind the idea
of persons and the quality of being great or wealthy. The words
are used in the sentence where nouns are used, but have an adjectival
meaning.
In the other sentences, why and wherefore,
When, Now, and Then, are spoken of as if pure nouns; but
still the reader considers this not a natural application of them as name
words, but as a figure of speech.
NOTE.—These remarks do not apply, of course, to such
words as become pure nouns by use. There are many of these. The adjective
good has no claim on the noun goods; so, too, in speaking of the
principal of a school, or a state secret, or a faithful
domestic, or a criminal, etc., the words are entirely independent
of any adjective force. |
