Choisir le bon quantificateur
Pour repondre aux questions How much? et How many?, certains quantificateurs ne peuvent s’associer qu’à des noms dénombrables, d'autres quantificateurs ne peuvent s'associer qu’à des noms indénombrables (sugar, tea, money), et les autres peuvent s'associer aux deux.
| Seulement avec les noms indénombrables | Avec tous les noms | Uniquement avec les noms dénombrables |
|---|---|---|
| a little | no, none, not any | a few |
| a bit of | some | a number of |
| any | several | |
| a great deal of | a lot of, lots of | a great number of |
| a large amount of | plenty of | a large number of |
Exemples
- Would you like some tea and a few cookies?
- I always put a little milk and some carrots in my soup.
- He has several apples. I don't have any fruit at all.
- She has plenty of clothes for the winter.
- I recieved a large amount of feedback from my survey.
Utiliser "Much" & "Many"
Much et many sont souvent utilisés dans des phrases négatives et interrogatives. Ils peuvent aussi être utilisés en combinaison avec too & so dans des phrases affirmatives et négatives. Attention, parce que many peut apparaître seul dans des phrases affirmatives, alors que much ne peut pas. Much est alors remplacé par a lot of ou lots of (many peut aussi être remplacé de la même façon.)
| Nom indénombrable | Nom dénombrable |
|---|---|
| How much sugar do you have? | How many people came to the concert? |
| There's not much sugar at the store. | Not many people came to the concert. |
| I have too much sugar at home. | There were too many people at the concert. |
| I don't know what to do with so much sugar. | It's a problem when there are so many people. |
| I wish there was not so much sugar here. | There were not so many people last year. |
| There is a lot of sugar in candy. | There are many people who want to come. = There are a lot of people who want to come. |