Quantifiers

The Right Quantifier

To answer the questions How much? and How many? certain quantifiers can be used with countable nouns (friends, cups, people), others with uncountable nouns (sugar, tea, money) and still others with all types of nouns.

Only with uncountable nouns With all types of nouns Only with countable nouns
a little no, none, not any a few
a bit of some a number of
any several
a great deal of a lot of, lots of a great number of
a large amount of plenty of a large number of
EXAMPLES
  • Would you like some tea and a few cookies?
  • I always put a little milk and some carrots in my soup.
  • He has several apples. I don't have any fruit at all.
  • She has plenty of clothes for the winter.
  • I recieved a large amount of feedback from my survey.
USING "MUCH" AND"MANY"

Much and many are mainly used in interrogative and negative sentences. They are also used in affirmative and negative sentences in combination with too and so. Notice: the word many can be used alone in affirmative sentences while the word much cannot. Much is replaced in affirmative sentences with a lot of or lots of (these expressions can also replace many).

Uncountable nouns Countable nouns
How much sugar do you have? How many people came to the concert?
There's not much sugar at the store. Not many people came to the concert.
I have too much sugar at home. There were too many people at the concert.
I don't know what to do with so much sugar. It's a problem when there are so many people.
I wish there was not so much sugar here. There were not so many people last year.
There is a lot of sugar in candy. There are many people who want to come. = There are a lot of people who want to come.
Indefinite and incomplete quantities (Prev Lesson)
(Next Lesson) Numbers in English
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