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The concept of a "mass noun" is a grammatical concept and is not based on the innate nature of the object to which that noun refers. For example, "seven chairs" and "some furniture" could refer to exactly the same objects, with "seven chairs" referring to them as a collection of individual objects but with "some furniture" referring to them as a single undifferentiated unit.
Linguistic prescriptivists usually say that fewer and not less should be used with countable nouns, [2] and that less should be used only with uncountable nouns. This distinction was first tentatively suggested by the grammarian Robert Baker in 1770, [3] [1] and it was eventually presented as a rule by many grammarians since then.
Some nouns can function both as countable and as uncountable such as "wine" in This is a good wine. Countable nouns generally have singular and plural forms. [ 4 ] In most cases the plural is formed from the singular by adding -[e]s (as in dogs , bushes ), although there are also irregular forms ( woman/women , foot/feet ), including cases ...
A proper noun (sometimes called a proper name, though the two terms normally have different meanings) is a noun that represents a unique entity (India, Pegasus, Jupiter, Confucius, Pequod) – as distinguished from common nouns (or appellative nouns), which describe a class of entities (country, animal, planet, person, ship). [11]
Common nouns may be divided into count nouns and non-count nouns. English nouns typically have both count and non-count senses, though for a given noun one sense typically dominates. For example, apple is usually countable (two apples), but it also has a non-count sense (e.g., this pie is full of apple).
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The articles in English are the definite article the and the indefinite articles a and an.They are the two most common determiners.The definite article is the default determiner when the speaker believes that the listener knows the identity of a common noun's referent (because it is obvious, because it is common knowledge, or because it was mentioned in the same sentence or an earlier sentence).