I can only give you an opinion. I looked up the words promotion, abstract and noun in the websters universal unabridged dictionary and surmised that in some instances the word promotion could be abstract in function as defined: …nouns are often thought of as referring to persons, places, things, states or qualities. Promotion could refer to honorary titles or reassignment on ones position in life such as in military, government, education or in ones occupation. Promotions occurring in any of these areas could be founded on a others opinionated recommendations or in other words ones opinion of another(which could be considered abstract by virtue of the nature of opinions) or it could be based on solid factual evidence and performance, which would undoubtedly make a promotion based on solid evidence rather than someones abstractive opinion. Thats a tough question. I hope this helps.