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In philosophy and the arts, a fundamental distinction is between things that are abstract and things that are concrete.While there is no general consensus as to how to precisely define the two, examples include that things like numbers, sets, and ideas are abstract objects, while plants, dogs, and planets are concrete objects. [1]
A noun might have a literal (concrete) and also a figurative (abstract) meaning: "a brass key" and "the key to success"; "a block in the pipe" and "a mental block". Similarly, some abstract nouns have developed etymologically by figurative extension from literal roots (drawback, fraction, holdout, uptake).
For example within nouns there are two sub classes, concrete nouns and abstract nouns. The concrete nouns include people, plants, animals, materials and objects while the abstract nouns refer to concepts such as qualities, actions, and processes. According to the nature of the noun, they are categorized into different semantic classes.
A concrete number or numerus numeratus is a number associated with the things being counted, in contrast to an abstract number or numerus numerans which is a number as a single entity. For example, "five apples" and "half of a pie" are concrete numbers, while "five" and "one half" are abstract numbers.
Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (real or concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" is the outcome of this process — a concept that acts as a common noun for all subordinate concepts and connects any related ...
a word or lexical item denoting any abstract (abstract noun: e.g. home) or concrete entity (concrete noun: e.g. house); a person (police officer, Michael), place (coastline, London), thing (necktie, television), idea (happiness), or quality (bravery). Nouns can also be classified as count nouns or non-count nouns; some can belong to either ...
Nouns are also created by converting verbs and adjectives, as with the words talk and reading (a boring talk, the assigned reading). Nouns are sometimes classified semantically (by their meanings) as proper and common nouns (Cyrus, China vs frog, milk) or as concrete and abstract nouns (book, laptop vs embarrassment, prejudice). [4]
A substitution describes how a term is substituted in a sentence based on its referent. For nouns, a term can be used in different ways: With a concrete and real referent: [a] "That is my pig." (personal supposition) With a concrete but unreal referent: "Santa Claus's pig is very big." (personal supposition)