Hi, Scott

Regardless of who the audience for this is, agree that it's out of last century and needs serious work. On area that I'd revise is saying that X functions as a noun, verb, adjective, etc. Those are not functions. Adjectives, for example, typically function as modifiers or complements, and nouns can perform the same function, but nouns do not functions as adjectives.

Another idea is that if these are indeed to be presented to students, then you might consider having different definitions for different grades. For example, a grade five definition could be "names a person, place, or thing," but at grade six, you'd add some syntactic information (e.g., and typically has a singular and plural form). In grade eight, you might have something like, "'Noun' is a word category. It's central members include words denoting physical objects, such as persons, animals and inanimate objects. Nouns typically inflect for number (dog vs dogs), and head phrases functioning as subject or as object of a verb or preposition (The dog barked, I found a dog, Give it to the dog)." That last one is over the top, but it illustrates the idea.

Best,
Brett

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Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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