Foreign language and literature

The Noun
In most cases in treating parts of speech in English we shall keep to the conception of scientists that we refer to post-structural tendency. It's because they combine the ideas of traditional and structural grammarians.
The nouns are classified into a separate word - group because:

1. 
   they all have the same lexical - grammatical meaning :
   

substance / thing

2. 
   according to their form - they've two grammatical categories:
   

number and case

3. 
   they all have typical stem-building elements:
   

- er, - ist, - ship, - merit, -hood ...

4. 
   typical combinability with other words:
   

most often left-hand combinability

5. 
   function - the most characteristic feature of nouns is - they can be observed in all syntactic functions but predicate.
   

Some words about the distribution of nouns. Because of the fact that nouns express or denote substance / thing, their distribution is bound with the words which express the quality of substance, their number, their actions and their relation to the other words /nouns/ in English.
When the quality of nouns are described we make use of adjectives:
big, red apple
energetic crisis
a long, dusty track and others.
When the quantity and order of nouns are described the numerals are to be used:
the six continents
25^th anniversary
12 students....
When we denote the action of substances we make use of the verbs:
An apple-tree grows in the garden
Russia assisted India in Mounting Bokaro Steal Plant
When the relation of nouns to other words are described we make wide use of prepositions
a window of the school
to the park
at the construction of the bridge
In all these cases with the exception of verbs the noun is characterized with left-hand combinability / in overwhelming majority/. So far as to the verbs are concerned they may both precede and follow them.