Using words like "another" and "some" as nouns
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Using words like "another" and "some" as nouns
1- "Some are nice."
2- "Another is a website with interesting information."
3- "The good die young."
4- "Good die young."
Are those complete sentences?
"Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco." Virgil, The Aeneid
- evraealtana
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In sentence 4, using "good" (different from "the good") as a noun refers to public good, or moral/ethical good; it is a singular noun.
- Superman does good.
- Doing good for others makes you feel happy.
- Good is priceless; evil is merely expensive.
Because "good" as a noun is singular, to make sentence 4 correct, you would need to change it to "Good dies young", which would convey a meaning that morally correct actions never last very long. By contrast, "the good" (sentence 3) refers to good people, along the same lines as:
- Be respectful to the elderly.
- A nurse's job is to for the sickly.
- The young are always so full of life.
"The good" is a shortened version of "The good people [in the world]", and so although it looks like "good" is being used as a noun in sentence 3, it is actually an adjective. This is why sentence 3 is correct as written, while sentence 4 is incorrect. You could correct sentence 4 by adding the word "people": "Good people die young."
In sentences 1 and 2, "some" and "another" are used as pronouns, referring to other nouns. In order to verify that they are correct, add back in the antecedents:
1. The store has many colorful dresses on display. Some are nice. Most are tasteless.
2. The document is a list of hyperlinks related to my research topic; I click on a few of them. The first is a web forum, which appears to be inactive. Another is a website with interesting information. Yet another is an article from The New York Times.
Adding the antecedents back in ("many colorful dresses", "hyperlinks") makes the sentences now appear correct, when they would appear questionable if taken out of context.
- sarahmarlowe
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"Some" and "another" (in the first two sentences) are used here as pronouns.
They are functioning as subjects much like in the sentence "Some like it hot." Independent clauses contain both a subject and a verb and can stand alone. "Some are nice" can stand alone because it has both a subject (some) and a verb (are), and it completes a thought.
"Another is a website with interesting information" is also an independent phrase with "another" as subject and "is" as verb.
https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/pro ... finite.htm
In the third one, "Only the good die young," "good" is acting as a noun with "die" as the verb. It is also an independent clause.
In the last one, "Good die young," "good" is acting as a collective noun, technically making this a sentence, but it is an awkward phrase that would cause readers to stumble over it and decrease the flow of text. Allowing "good" to be an adjective and adding a noun such as "people" for it to modify would more clearly state the idea. Another idea would be to use "good" as a singular abstract noun and correct " die" to "dies" for proper SVA.
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