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Exactly what kind of a noun is "language" in this metaphorical sentence?

Music is beautiful language.

Dog Lover
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user3510079
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    My gut expects "a beautiful language"... – Stephie Jul 13 '15 at 08:56
  • Mine too, but either way works. Different connotation though. Either Music IS literally a language (which it arguably is, with both written and audio forms, a syntax, and punctuation); or instances of music are just metaphorically "language", because they "speak to us" somehow. – Brian Hitchcock Jul 13 '15 at 09:15
  • Language is beautiful music. What type of noun is music? @Stephie, do you expect "a beautiful music" there? – Tᴚoɯɐuo Jul 13 '15 at 10:35
  • @TRomano But we say *Water is a substance* not *Water is substance*. And *(A) substance is (a) water* doesn't really work, IMHO. – Damkerng T. Jul 13 '15 at 11:16
  • @Damkerng T. Are you suggesting that *substance*, *art*, *music*, and *language* are all the same kind of noun? – Tᴚoɯɐuo Jul 13 '15 at 11:43
  • @TRomano My idea was that not all nouns work the same way, and the copula *be* sometimes is directional. For me, the meaning should come first, and meaning can help resolve the syntactic category, but syntax can force how we should interpret the meaning. *Music is a beautiful language* could mean one thing, while *Music is beautiful language*, given that it's a valid sentence, should mean a different thing. – Damkerng T. Jul 13 '15 at 11:53
  • @Damkerng T. Agreed. If we have an abstraction that refers to a paradigm or essence (Art, Music, Language -- by convention we use upper case) we don't use the article. Consider a treatise on metaphysics in which the author makes a distinction between Substance and Idea. In such a treatise one would accept as grammatical the question "Is a drop of water on the back of your hand Substance or Idea?" and the answer "Water is Substance". Now consider a textbook on crime-scene forensics: "The investigator should test the substance to determine whether it is organic or inorganic." – Tᴚoɯɐuo Jul 13 '15 at 12:46
  • @NANDAGOPAL How is "language" an uncountable noun? It has a plural - "languages". – Dog Lover Jul 13 '15 at 22:47
  • Yeah, that was stupid of me.. sorry. – NANDAGOPAL Jul 14 '15 at 08:51

1 Answers1

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"Language" is a common abstract noun. An abstract noun is, to put it simply, a thing which cannot be touched; a noun which expresses an idea, quality or state rather than a physical object. (Paraphrased from Google)

The other type of common noun is the concrete noun. This is the noun which is most common; for example, "dog", "computer", "table". Common nouns do not require a capital letter except in obvious circumstances such as the beginning of a sentence.

Dog Lover
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