Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Many English nouns can be used in either mass or count syntax, and in these cases, they take on cumulative reference when used as mass nouns. For example, one may say that "there's apple in this sauce", and then apple has cumulative reference, and, hence, is used as a mass noun. The names of animals, such as "chicken", "fox" or "lamb" are count ...
Classifiers play a similar role to measure words, except that measure words denote a particular quantity of something (a drop, a cupful, a pint, etc.), rather than the inherent countable units associated with a count noun. Classifiers are used with count nouns; measure words can be used with mass nouns (e.g. "two pints of mud"), and can also be ...
Noun class 1 refers to mass nouns, collective nouns, and abstract nouns. examples: вода 'water', любовь 'love' Noun class 2 refers to items with which the eye can focus on and must be non-active examples: дом 'house', школа 'school' Noun class 3 refers to non-humans that are active. examples: рыба 'fish', чайка 'seagull'
In Kiowa, by default, Class I nouns are singular-dual, Class II nouns are plural (two or more), Class III nouns are dual, and Class IV nouns are mass nouns with no number. The inverse number marker changes the noun to whatever number(s) the unmarked noun isn't, such as changing Class III nouns from dual to nondual. [ 277 ]
The word data is most often used as a singular collective mass noun in educated everyday usage. [1] [2] However, due to the history and etymology of the word, considerable controversy has existed on whether it should be considered a mass noun used with verbs conjugated in the singular, or should be treated as the plural of the now-rarely-used datum.
In English, some modern authors use the word substantive to refer to a class that includes both nouns (single words) and noun phrases (multiword units that are sometimes called noun equivalents). [6] It can also be used as a counterpart to attributive when distinguishing between a noun being used as the head (main word) of a noun phrase and a ...
English allows the use of "stranded" prepositions. This can occur in interrogative and relative clauses, where the interrogative or relative pronoun that is the preposition's complement is moved to the start , leaving the preposition in place. This kind of structure is avoided in some kinds of formal English. For example:
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.