Noncount Nouns

 

Welcome to Our Online English Grammar HELP! Student Handbook!

Today we continue with our Grammar HELP! Book's discussion of nouns and pronouns. It is for beginners and intermediate learners of English.

We begin with written activities.  You can print out the exercises below and complete them.

In our Library, you can locate the lesson One, Two, Three Little Countable Nouns. You may want to review that lesson before you begin today with the exercises.


How to Quantify a Noun

 

What do you call words and phrases such as few, lots of, not enough, less, more, and too much?

We call them quantifiers.

Quantifiers are words that indicate how much of something there is.

The quantifier exists in the noun determiner position; that is, it exists right before the noun.  The quantifier and the noun will, together as a unit, constitute a noun phrase.

There are different quantifiers for count and for noncount nouns.

Look at the following two sentences.  Can you identify each noun as count or noncount?


It now takes me less time to do my work.  I can now finish my work in two hours.

CLICK HERE TO FIND THE ANSWERS.

Continue below:

How to Quantify a (Plural) Countable Noun

 

Here are some examples of quantifiers for plural countable nouns:

            

few a few a couple of a lot of
lots of a number of many too many
not enough enough a half (of) all (of)


In a noun phrase with a quantifier and a plural countable noun, the head noun should be in the plural form:

  • A friend of mine joined the army a couple of months ago.
  • There were a lot of day care centers to help working parents.
  • I should sleep as few hours as I can because I have a lot of studying to do.


In our next unit, we learn how to quantify a noncountable noun.  Click here and join us!

CLICK HERE TO LEARN THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN "LITTLE" and "A LITTLE".

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