Proper and common nouns have such an inherent feature as changing places, that is, a proper name can become a common noun, and vice versa. Such smallness is very often misleading. Let's look into the subtleties, terms and details.
What is a common noun? It is a noun that means something. For example: a dog, a tree, a person, a table, etc. A common noun, unlike a proper name, can be used in the plural, but is written according to the rules of the Russian language.
What is a proper name? The most common name or title. It can belong to a person or a dog, a country or a mountain range, a cake or a magazine. It doesn't matter to whom or what, the main thing is that it is this word that distinguishes an object, creature or something else from a number of others. For example: Guadeloupe (name of the country), King Kong (name of a monkey from the film of the same name), Gennadiev Gennady Gennadievich (first name, surname and patronymic belonging to one person). That is, all three examples are proper nouns, despite the fact that some of them consist of several components.
What is a proper name withgrammar point of view? This is a noun that must be capitalized and does not have a plural (with the exception of surnames belonging to a group of persons (Smirnovs, Kulikovs). In cases where a proper name is used in relation to the name of a store, hotel, newspaper or car brand, its should also be written in quotation marks. For example: plant "Progress". In this particular case, the word plant is a common noun, and "Progress" is a proper noun and is written with a capital letter in quotation marks, as it indicates the name of the enterprise.
Now let's look at what a proper name is out of context? Often just a noun. Let's take the previous example and consider the word "progress", which means moving forward. Unlike the previous phrase, now in the sentence, where it will denote its direct concept, it will be a common noun. Compare:
- I work at the Progress factory (proper name).
- Progress has been made in my work (common noun).
From the above, we can conclude that the word itself rarely carries a clear concept of what it is. You can understand the essence, based on the context, with the exception of personal names. Although in some cases even a name cannot be a guarantee that it is a proper noun, and not a common noun. For example, the name Vera. Compare:
- The girl Vera (proper name) left us.
- Last minute faith(a common noun) left us.
In the first case, the name of a person is used, and in the second, a term denoting confidence in something.
At the end of the article I would like to tell you what a proper name is from the point of view of science. Huge "field" for study. The thing is that a proper name has a certain stability, allowing scientists to restore historical facts, migration routes, disappeared settlements and much more. The science that studies proper names is called onomastics. It is also worth noting the fact that proper names in English, as well as in German, Portuguese or any other language of the world that has both an alphabet and differences between lowercase and uppercase, are also written with a capital letter.
