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I am confused on how to understand nouns that in -logy. For instance: "I studied metereology in college." My confusion lies in that these are common nouns. But they seem to refer to a single instance of an object. That would be more like a proper noun, where the noun/name refers to a single, specific object. I guess it hinges at least somewhat on whether the "meteorlogy" that Alice studied is the same as the "meteorology" that Bob studied?

So are these common nouns? Proper nouns? Some kind of third class I am not thinking of? What is the significance of using these nouns in countable versus uncountable forms?

Tristan
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CorruptedHeapScapeGoat
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    they're abstract nouns, in the same way that "warmth" is. They're still common though, as they don't refer to a singular entity – Tristan Jul 26 '21 at 14:15
  • arguably this seems to get into philosophy more than linguisticcs though. I believe this is off-topic here, as we don't accept questions about the grammar of single individual languages. I suggest you try either the english or philosophy stack exchanges – Tristan Jul 26 '21 at 14:16
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    They are abstract common nouns. cf. Gillon 2019 Natural language semantics “Common nouns are quite diverse in what they denote. They may denote physical entities (table), mental entities (concept), states (fatigue), events (picnic), and conditions (disease). Indeed, it seems that there is nothing they cannot denote. Since the Middle Ages, however, common nouns have often been divided into concrete nouns (that is, nouns denoting concrete entities, for example, rock, leaf, person) and abstract nouns (that is, nouns denoting abstract entities, for example, justice, truth, scorn)” (p. 107). – Alex B. Jul 26 '21 at 17:32
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    For more info I recommend Radden and Dirven 2007 Cognitive English grammar https://benjamins.com/catalog/clip.2 – Alex B. Jul 26 '21 at 17:49

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