Do singular nouns start sentences?

Question

I am trying to help a Korean student who has great trouble knowing when to use articles (a, an, the) and when to omit them. Am I seriously wrong if I tell her that SINGULAR REGULAR NOUNS (I'm not talking about proper nouns, plural nouns, or pronouns) DO NOT START SENTENCES, but follow an article or a word like "some," "one," "that," etc.?

I was trying to think of holes in this idea. "Flower arrangements are beautiful," for instance. But in that case, "flower" functions like an adjective describing "arrangement," I think.

I'd really appreciate some help with this question and, possibly, some ideas for simplifying the question of article/no article. Thank you!

Nancy

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

Here is a helpful article on articles.

It describes omission of the article in non-count nouns:

Subject:

Candy is bad for your teeth.

Milk should be pasteurized.

Direct object:
Drink water every day.

I put sugar and milk in my tea.

Object of a preposition
I drink 8 glasses of water every day.
rising to the water's surface, he took many deep breaths of air.

And it also describes omission of articles in certain classes of nouns such as sports and academic subjects:

I studied history. He played baseball in high school.

AnonymousI was trying to think of holes in this idea. "Flower arrangements are beautiful," for instance. But in that case, "flower" functions like an adjective describing "arrangement," I think.

Yes, we frequently use words that are normally nouns as adjectives.

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousAm I seriously wrong if I tell her that SINGULAR REGULAR NOUNS (I'm not talking about proper nouns, plural nouns, or pronouns) DO NOT START SENTENCES, but follow an article or a word like "some," "one," "that," etc.?

You are on the right track. You have to have an article (or some other similar word -- These are all called "determiners".) in front of all concrete countable singular nouns. It doesn't matter whether they start a sentence or not, however.

If it's not 1) concrete, 2) countable, and 3) singular, it may possibly appear without a determiner:

1) Faith is a virtue. (faith is not a concrete noun.)
2) Meat is expensive at the Big Value Supermarket. (meat is not countable.)
3) Houses in this neighborhood are hardly ever for sale. (houses is not singular.)

You're right that this general rule applies only to "real" nouns, not to the cases where a noun functions as an adjective, as in flower arrangements.
____
I'm not familiar with the term "regular noun".

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Hi, sounds like a good general rule of thumb, except in cases where you are referring to the word itself, such as "Dog is a three-letter word." I can't imagine an English-language learner is going to be crafting too many sentences of that type, however. And in this case "Dog" should be in quotes anyway, which is another lesson entirely ;-)

Coloraday · Answer

I've read somewhere that when you speak of a word generally ,you don't need any The.
Examples:
Gold is an expensive metal.
Cats are intelligent animals.
Dogs are faithful animals.
But when you speak of of a word which indicates something definite you should use The.
Examples:
The gold in this ring is very old.
The cats I breed are Japanese.

BarbaraPA · Answer

Hi coloraday,

The difference here is that your examples use either non-count nouns or plural nouns.

You would not say "Cat is intelligent" or "Dog is faithful." You need the article. "The cat is an intelligent animal" or "The dog is a faithful animal."

Do singular nouns start sentences?

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