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A proper noun is a noun that in its primary application refers to a unique entity, such as ''London'', ''Jupiter'', ''Sarah'', or ''Microsoft'', as distinguished from a common noun, which usually refers to a class of entities (''city, planet, person, corporation''), or non-unique instances of a specific class (a ''city'', another ''planet'', these ''persons'', our ''corporation'').〔Lester and Beason (2005), p. 4; Anderson (2007), pp. 3–5.〕 Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to ''groups'' of entities considered as unique (the ''Hendersons'', the ''Everglades'', ''the Azores'', the ''Pleiades''). Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns (the ''Mozart'' experience; his ''Azores'' adventure), or in the role of common nouns (he's no ''Pavarotti''; a few would-be ''Napoleons''). The detailed definition of the term is problematic and to an extent governed by convention.〔Valentine et al. (1996), pp. 2–5; Anderson (2007), p. 3.〕 A distinction is normally made in current linguistics between proper nouns and proper names. By this strict distinction, because the term ''noun'' is used for a class of single words (''tree'', ''beauty''), only single-word proper names are proper nouns: ''Peter'' and ''Africa'' are both proper names and proper nouns; but ''Peter the Great'' and ''South Africa'', while they are proper names, are not proper nouns. The term ''common name'' is not much used to contrast with ''proper name'', but some linguists have used the term for that purpose. Sometimes proper names are called simply ''names''; but that term is often used more broadly. Words derived from proper names are sometimes called ''proper adjectives'' (or ''proper adverbs'', and so on), but not in mainstream linguistic theory. Not every noun or noun phrase that refers to a unique entity is a proper name. ''Blackness'' and ''chastity'' are common nouns, even if blackness and chastity are considered unique abstract entities. Few proper names have only one possible referent: there are many places named ''New Haven''; ''Jupiter'' may refer to a planet, a god, a ship, or a symphony; at least one person has been named ''Mata Hari'', but so have a horse, a song, and three films; there are towns and people named ''Toyota'', as well as the company. In English, proper names in their primary application cannot normally be modified by an article or other determiner (such as ''any'' or ''another''), although some may be taken to include the article ''the'', as in ''the Netherlands'', ''the Roaring Forties'', or ''the Rolling Stones''. A proper name may appear to refer by having a descriptive meaning, even though it does not (the Rolling Stones are not stones and do not roll; a woman named ''Rose'' is not a flower). Or if it had once been descriptive (and then perhaps not even a proper name at all), it may no longer be so (a location previously referred to as "the new town" may now have the proper name ''Newtown'', 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 (French ''lundi'', ''Canada'', ''canadien''; English ''Monday'', ''Canada'', ''Canadian''). The study of proper names is sometimes called ''onomastics'' or ''onomatology'' while a rigorous analysis of the semantics of proper names is a matter for philosophy of language. ==Common and proper nouns== In linguistics proper nouns, common nouns and mass nouns are three distinct subclasses of nouns. Common nouns refer to a class of individual entities, whereas proper nouns name a unique referent, and mass nouns refer to non-individual referents. In English syntax they can fulfill the same functions, but proper nouns behave different in that, like mass nouns, they cannot take the determiners "the" or "a" - this is a consequence of the fact that since they denote a unique referent they cannot be indefinite, and they do not have a plural form except in special cases where they are used as common nouns. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「proper noun」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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