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TOPIC 13. THE EXPRESSION OF QUANTITY is an amount that one can measure or…
TOPIC 13. THE EXPRESSION OF QUANTITY is an amount that one can measure or count. In linguistic terms, quantity is a notion which refers to answering questions such as "How Much/Many?". For this purpose, the main formal language devices are quantifiers, partitive constructions, comparative constructions, and word classes.
2.1. PARTITIVE CONSTRUCTION: prepositional phrases to describe quantity. They denote part of a whole, are formed by a count noun + of-phrase (a bit of), and are usually used with cardinals.
- They may be expressions of precise measure (2 kilos of oranges). Units of measurement can be divided into length, area, capacity, and weight; and they are used with ordinal numerals (one-third of my free time).
REFERENCES
- Carter, R., & McCarthy, M. (1988). Vocabulary and language teaching. Routledge.
- Quirk, R. et al. (1985). "A Comprehensible Grammar of the English Language"
2.1. QUANTIFIERS AND NUMERALS,
According to Carter and McCarthy, are noun-modifying words that refer to quantity. They tell us how many/much. Quantifiers are determiners that describe quantity in a noun phrase.
- Quantifiers can be divided into partitives/multipliers/dual quantifiers depending on the type of quantity they refer to. In grammar, quantifiers are determiners that express a relative quantity. They appear in front of nouns and function as pronouns (all have returned). A complex qualifier is a phrase (a lot of) that functions as a quantifier. They can be articles, adjectives, numerals, quantifiers and demonstratives.
- Numerals, in turn, are divided into 2 semantic classes: ordinals and cardinals.
A) QUIRK'S CLASSIFICATION 
: 3 classes of determiners
predeterminers also include quantifiers such as all/both, half and fractions
post-determiners cardinals and quantifiers (a little, a few, a lot of)
central determiners include articles or other words substituting and behaving similar to them (the for this/no, a for every/either/neither,zero for some/any/enough)
B) NUMERALS are used in expressions referring to quantity, including time, dates, fractions, percentages, age.
USAGE RULES:
ORDINALS are created by adding the -th ending to cardinals and used in fractions. fractions are expressed with ordinals if simple and cardinals and the word over if complex.
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in writing, commas are used to separate thousands and a full stop before the fraction
Hundred, thousand, dozen don't have plural ending if used after a number or several: one million dollars.
some determiners can function as C) PRONOUNS, specifically indefinite pronouns.
According to Quirk, they're divided into:
universal: every(body), none, neither, all, both.
partitive: some(one), any(one), either
2.2. COMPARATIVE CONSTRUCTION to show quantity are: comparing quantity using adjectives (they're more/as numerous than/as); showing big/small differences adding much/even/far/slightly with comparative adjectives (much more beautiful); showing there is no difference by means of exactly the same as, as just a
3. PLURAL NUMBER: grammatical distinction which contrasts singular/plural in (pro)nouns/determiners/verbs. It's reflected in sentences through subject/verb concord and pronominal deixis.
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C) NUMBER IN PRONOUNS are pro-forms associated with noun phrases. Their referential meaning is established by grammar rules and the situational context where they occur:
- central pronouns can be personal, reflexive and possessives
- relative and interrogative pronouns don't have number distinction (who)
- demonstrative pronouns indicate a deictic contrast in time or space perception as well as number diferentiation (this/these/those)
- indefinite pronouns are followed by a singular verb (everybody loves me)