Is Ernestine Jones a noun?    Asked on  1 Answer | Add Yours
wordprof's profile pic  Posted on (Answer #2)  With all due
respect, this certainly is a noun, defined as “a person, place,
or thing” and it is a proper noun and thus deserves its
capitalization. (It is also a compound noun.)  There is no
argument for its being a pronoun—it stands for a person, real or
ficticious, whose name is Ernestine Jones.  Taken out of
context, one cannot say it’s a subject, object, etc. because
those are parts of a clause structure. If, in a complete
thought, the writer/speaker does not want to repeat the name, a
pronoun can replace it (example: “Ernestine Jones goes to my
school; she is on the track team.”) While a noun can refer to an
abstraction (hope, fear, wonder, etc.) the most common use,
especially of a proper noun, is the “signifier” of a signified
person or place, the word (here a compound) that conveys the
person being referred to.   The question calls for a clear
distinction from verbs, articles, adverbs, etc., a