Noun vs. Verb

Main Difference

The main difference between a noun and a verb is that a noun answers the question 'what' whereas a verb is an action or activity word.

Difference Between Noun and Verb

Comparison Chart

Noun vs. Verb

Noun indicates an item, state, act, or notion. The verb indicates the condition of being, as to happen or stand. Noun can also be performed as an object of a preposition, or an appositive. The verb tells us what is happening. The noun is the name of a person, place, or thing. A verb can also play the role of helping action or relating action.

What is a noun?

A sentence can consist of more than one noun and verb. E.G., Aslam like bread, and Akram like jam. A noun of more than one word is called a compound noun: E.G., tennis court, gas station. Nouns are the foundation of sentence structure. A noun also performs as a direct object of a verb, an indirect object of a verb, and an object of a preposition.

Types

• Common noun: Common noun is the common name of a person, place, or thing. E.g., man, woman, bag, girl, city, river, or country.
• Proper noun: Proper noun is a specific or particular name of a person, place, or a thing. E.g., Nasima, Satluj, Islamabad, and Ali, etc.
• Material noun: The material noun has its existence and can be seen. E.g., gold, silver, iron, bread, milk, sugar, salt, and coal, etc.
• Abstract noun: The abstract noun has no existence of its own and cannot be seen, but it can be felt. E.g., honesty, beauty, angry, selfishness, devotion, emotion, and hard work, etc.
• Collective noun: Collective noun is the whole body or group of persons, places, or things. E.G., army, police, party, class, and groups, etc.
• Countable nouns: The nouns that we can count or that have a limit. E.g., spoons, books, and parts of the body, etc.
• Uncountable nouns: The nouns that we cannot count and have no limit. E.g., sugar, oil, hair, and tea, etc.
• Verbal noun: A verbal noun openly comes from a verb. This noun sometimes gives a sense of a verb in a sentence. Such a noun gets the nominal or verb complement. E.g., smoking is forbidden. Here smoking is the verbal noun.

Examples

• The common name is the ship, and the specific name is titanic.
• The common name is a book, and a specific name is Quran.
• The common name is country, and the specific name is Pakistan.
• The common name is girl, and the specific name is Naima.
• The teacher is calling the roll of the second-year class.
• The police caught theft.

What is a verb?

The verb is a word that says something about the activity of a person or a thing. A verb comes in the central place of a sentence. It is the word by which we says something about the subject. A verb performs as the predicate of a sentence. When the verb proceeds ‘to,’ then it is known as an infinitive. In this case, we have to get the idea of the main verb before or after the infinitive. E.g., I am going to Karachi.

Types

• Transitive verb: Transitive verb requires an object in a sentence. In this verb, the action does not stop with the doer, but it passes from the doer to the object.
• Intransitive verb: Intransitive verb does not require an object in the sentence. In this verb, the action stops with the doer.
• Helping or auxiliary verb: Helping verbs are used before the main verb to make the meaning clear. They helped in forming the tenses, negative, interrogative, and in the passive voice.
• Primary auxiliaries: Primary auxiliaries change their form when the number of the subject change. E.g., I do not, but she does, I have, but she has, I am, but she is, and they are.
• Modal auxiliaries: Modal auxiliaries remain unchanged. They cannot be used alone but are always used with the main verb. Only the form of the verb can be used after the auxiliary verb. E.g., should, must, can, could, may, might, and ought to, etc.
• Irregular verb: In irregular verbs, the past tense has not the ending of the –ed. E.g., sing, feel, and go, etc.

Examples

• Nasima is plucking flowers.
• Zubair is signing a song.
• The mother wrote a letter.
• We drank iced water.
• The farmer grows carrots
• The peon rings the bell.
• They appeared there.
• The bell rang.
• She wept bitterly.
• We went to college.
• The bell rang.
• I do not tell lies.
• The naughty boys are punished.
• You should respect your teachers.
• I can help you.
• It may rain today.
• I may go to the station.

Conclusion

Noun and verb both are the parts of speech and play an important role in our daily uses language. Both these parts of speech have different functions and concepts in grammar.