SMRT: Carrie Friend: July 2012

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Quantifiers -- Important Notes to remember

1. Add “of” to the quantifier when there is a determiner before the noun—determiners are:

A, an, the; this, that, these, those; my, his, her, your, their, our.

I ate some of the cookies.

He ate all of my cookies.

I ate a few of those cookies.

Many of the cookies were eaten. Much of the cake was eaten.

Also add “of” to the quantifier with an object pronoun (after the verb)

Him, her, us, them, me, it

Did you eat all of the cake? No, I only ate some of it.

2. Differences between ‘a few’ and ‘few’ (for countable nouns) and ‘a little’ and ‘little’(for uncountable nouns)

A few, few:

I have a few copies. (some)

I have few copies. (not very many—lack of copies)

A little, little:

I have a little money. (some)

I have little money. (not very much—lack of money)

3. Quite (adverb) and quantifiers

When ‘quite’ is before a small quantifier, it changes the meaning to the opposite!!! (a few, a bit)

However; it does not change the meaning with a large quantifier.

There are a few people at party. (not many, a small number of)

There are quite a few people. (a lot, many)—opposite idea

There is a bit of food left. (a little food left, not much food)

There is quite a bit of food left. (a lot of food—much food)—opposite idea

Quite does not change the meaning of quantifiers for large amounts—it stresses or emphasizes that there is a large amount—similar to using ‘very’.

There are quite a lot of students at the party. (There are very many students at the party.)

Carlos Slim has quite a lot of money. (He has very much money.)

4. ‘So’ and ‘too’ with quantifiers.

SMRT: Carrie Friend