Basic English Syntax with Exercises

mass noun

1.3.4.2 Nouns

Besides morphological irregularity, there are also a number of problematic cases. Some nouns express concepts for which number distinctions are not normally made. For example, sand refers to stuff that naturally comes in a quantity for which the division into ‘one’ (singular) and ‘more than one’ (plural) is not particularly natural. Nouns which naturally accommodate this distinction are known as count nouns and those that do not are called mass nouns. If we wish to individuate mass nouns, we usually do this in terms of another noun which names a unit of what the mass noun refers to and put this into a more complicated construction, known as the partitive:

1.3.4.2 Nouns

Thus, it is not typical to find plural forms of mass nouns, though, of course, this does not mean that they should not be considered as nouns. As a matter of fact, plural forms of mass nouns do exist, though their uses tend to be rather specialised:

1.3.4.2 Nouns

Typically, the plural forms of mass nouns tend to refer to different collections of what the nouns refer to. Take (83c) for example. Here the plural noun breads refers to various types of bread: cottage loaves, whole meal bread, rye bread, baguettes, etc.

1.3.5.2 Determiners

With mass nouns, for which number is not applicable, we can have neither singular nor plural determiners (unless we treat the mass noun as a count noun, referring to types or groups of the material that the noun refers to – see the discussion in section 2.1.3.):

1.3.5.2 Determiners

The definite determiner the can be used in either singular or plural contexts and even those unmarked for number, when used with mass nouns:

4.2.1 Determiners and Complements

As we have seen, the determiner may impose restrictions on its NP complement, particularly in terms of number: singular determiners take singular NP complements and plural determiners take plural NP complements. Some determiners take mass NP complements, and we have seen that the empty definite determiner takes a proper NP complement: