Search results for 'tag:Countable or uncountable tag:Constructions' matching tags 'Countable or uncountable' and 'Constructions'

Re: Is this sentence correct

Mr Wordy — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 17:17:44 GMT

wholegrain
So, society is countable or uncountable depending on the definition we use.

So, for example when we speak of society as the totality of social relationships among humans, it is uncountable.

But when we speak of society as a group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture, it is countable?

Yep, that's pretty much it.

(Nitpick: uncountable "society" does not always have to be the totality of all social relationships among humans; it can, while still having a "general" meaning, be narrowed down by context. For example, you could talk about "pre-war British working-class society" in an uncountable way.)

wholegrain
Do you think the words church and state can be uncountable?

"Church" can be uncountable in the sense of "attending church" or "what happens in church". Randomly Googled example:

They say vaguely that church is dull, and that they don't want it; then someone makes rather hectic efforts to "brighten" services ...

I can't think of an instance when "state" is "uncountable". It's true that you can say, for example (again randomly Googled):

Miss Aloni was quick to underscore that separation of religion and state would be proper not only from a legal and democratic point of view...

But to me this is not really an "uncountable" use, it's just a special type of construction where the article is omitted. Otherwise you could cite endless examples such as "They arrived by horse and cart" or "In the library I flitted from book to book" and claim that "cart" and "book" can be uncountable, which seems silly. You'd need to ask someone more expert than me exactly what these types of usage are called.

Re: The noun "work" - countable or uncountable?

Clive — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 06:59:15 GMT

Hi guys,

These all seem like valid points. There are certainly some specialized uses of the plural form. eg the works of a clock or the phrase something is in the works. We can speak of ten works of art.

In the construction trade, you can use the terms as noted, eg Clerk of Works, the Schedule of Works. These terms seem more like titles to me. I wouldn't think you can speak of a Schedule of Ten Works. So, it doesn't seem to me like a truly countable noun, if you can't count it.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: The noun "work" - countable or uncountable?

nona the brit — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 20:12:29 GMT

I don't know about other contexts but in the construction industry 'works' is common. I have worked in the industry in various guises for nearly ten years and it is used in certain circumstances, even if the 'works' are singular. Further examples for you:

Clerk of Works (industry standard job title)
Groundworks (type of construction activity - yes, basically digging holes!)
Schedule of Works (the plan for the overall project)

Looking in my Oxford Concise dictionary comes up with the confirmation that Works can mean 'operations of building or repair' so it does seem to be construction specific.

The noun "work" - countable or uncountable?

pottolom — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 11:11:57 GMT

I am a native English speaker and have recently started working at an engineering firm in Eastern Europe as an environmental scientist. One of my roles within the company is to teach English to staff and I recently noticed that many of the company's employees use the noun "works", for example: "we will carry out engineering works".

I am qualified to teach English as a foreign language (CELTA) and I have always been taught that "work" is an uncountable noun, similar to water, i.e. we don't say "I have a lot of works." in the same way that we don't say "I have a lot of waters." The noun "work" is also listed as an uncountable noun in dictionaries.

In understood that the only exception was when referring to a factory or similar, e.g. a steel factory can be called a steelworks.

I told the staff about this mistake during my English lessons, but one of them came to me today and pointed out that in the FIDIC (an engineering institute) guidebook "Conditions of Contract for Construction", work is used as a countable noun with considerable frequency. I looked at the contents page and saw several examples: for example, "Commencement of Works", "Taking Over of Parts of the Works", etc. At the same time, I can also see that work has been used as an uncountable noun in the book, for example, "Resumption of Work", "Suspension of Work", etc.

As far as I'm concerned, this appears to be a mistake, but maybe I'm wrong? As a scientist, I'm not overly familiar with engineering terms - maybe that's the problem?

Can anyone help me with this at all? When can work be used as a countable noun?

Re: Can anybody check the analysis of these sentences?

Mister Micawber — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:33:47 GMT

Hi Eager,

I have run through and fixed the grammar, but have not had time to consider your analysis, sorry:

There are several linguistic resources that help people express genericness. Below, can be observed several forms that can also express something different than genericness.

In the first pair of sentences, one finds two degrees of genericness expressed by the zero determiner and the presence of a plural count noun. The sentence, 'Park rangers are available' is more specific than 'Park rangers are brave'. As regards meaning: while in the first one the reference is made to a specific place, in the second one, one assumes that the reference is made to all rangers in general, that t implies they must be brave in order to perform their duties.
Two ungrammatical constructions, such as 'The blood irrigates our bodies' and 'A dingo is indigenous to Australia' can also be found. Here, the speaker is trying to express genericness, but the article 'the' makes this impossible. Thus it would be correct if it said 'Blood irrigates our bodies', implying all bodies; and 'Dingos are indigenous to Australia', meaning all dingos.

The last cases are 'Blood is gushing out of his wound' and 'Blood is full of nutrients'. Both denote genericness by means of the lack of article. However, the first one makes reference to the blood of some man, through the use of the possessive adjective 'his'; and the second one to everyoneâs blood. From this, it can be concluded that the former sentence is more specific than the second one.

This exercise is an example of the system of qualification by which one expresses his or her perception of a thing or entity as a countable or uncountable mass noun, around two processes either relating to the semantic nature of entities which are lexicalized as mass or count or to the grammatical marking of entities (singular/plural, mass/count).

Re: Can anybody correct the grammar in this exercise?

anon1 — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 05:40:23 GMT

There are several linguistic resources that help people express genericity(??, what's genercity?). Down below, it can be observed several forms that can also express something different than genericity(?)--awkward sentence.

In the first pair of sentences one find two degrees of genericity expressed by the zero determiner and the presence of a count plural noun. The sentence[,] "Park rangers are available." is more specific than, "Park rangers are brave." As regards meaning, while in the first one the reference is made to a specific place (incomplete); in the second one, one assumes that the reference is made to all the rangers in general, it implies they have to be brave in order to perform their duty.(run-on)

stopped reviewing

Two ungrammatical constructions such as The blood irrigates our bodies and A dingo is indigenous to Australia can also be found. Here the speaker is trying to express genericity, but the article the makes it impossible. Thus it would be correct, if it said Blood irrigates our bodies, implying all bodies; and Dingos are indigenous to Australia, meaning all dingos.

The last cases are Blood is gushing out of his wound and Blood is full of nutrients. Both denote genericity by means of the lack of article. However, the first one makes reference to the blood of some man, through the use of the possessive adjective his; and the second one to everybodyâs blood. From this it can be concluded that the former sentence is more specific than the second one.

This exercise is an example of the system of qualification by which one expresses his or her perception of a thing or entity as a countable or uncountable mass noun, around two processes either relating to the semantic nature of entities which are lexicalized as mass or count or to the grammatical marking of entities (singular/plural, mass/count).

I am not sure if English is a second language or if this is for a course. Your grammar and punctuation are poor.

In the following pair of sentences you will find two degrees of genericity[what is this "genericity"?] expressed by the zero determiner and the presence of a count plural noun.

Sentence A: Park rangers are available.

Sentence B: Park ranger are brave.

With regard to meaning, in Sentence A reference is made to a specific place, while in Sentence B, the reference is implied to all park rangers--it implies that park rangers need to be brave to perform their duties.

You mishmashed your example sentences in with your text and thus it is hard to read and understand. You should strive to make it easy for the reader to quickly and readily grasp the text and its implications. Moreover, you have some incomplete sentences and run-ons. If you had a cleaner structure, I think you would catch your errors more readily.

I hope this helps.

MountainHiker

Can anybody check the analysis of these sentences?

eagertolearn — Sun, 28 Nov 2004 21:51:56 GMT

I need to hand in this exercise but I'm not sure about the analysis nor the grammar. If you could have a look at eat I would be really grateful! thank you all!

Explain the use of Generic Noun Phrases (or Noun Groups) in English by analyzing the examples.

There are several linguistic resources that help people express genericity. Down below, it can be observed several forms that can also express something different than genericity.
In the first pair of sentences one find two degrees of genericity expressed by the zero determiner and the presence of a count plural noun. The sentence Park rangers are available is more specific than Park rangers are brave. As regards meaning, while in the first one the reference is made to a specific place; in the second one, one assumes that the reference is made to all the rangers in general, it implies they have to be brave in order to perform their duty.
Two ungrammatical constructions such as The blood irrigates our bodies and A dingo is indigenous to Australia can also be found. Here the speaker is trying to express genericity, but the article the makes it impossible. Thus it would be correct, if it said Blood irrigates our bodies, implying all bodies; and Dingos are indigenous to Australia, meaning all dingos.
The last cases are Blood is gushing out of his wound and Blood is full of nutrients. Both denote genericity by means of the lack of article. However, the first one makes reference to the blood of some man, through the use of the possessive adjective his; and the second one to everybodyâs blood. From this it can be concluded that the former sentence is more specific than the second one.
This exercise is an example of the system of qualification by which one expresses his or her perception of a thing or entity as a countable or uncountable mass noun, around two processes either relating to the semantic nature of entities which are lexicalized as mass or count or to the grammatical marking of entities (singular/plural, mass/count).

Can anybody correct the grammar in this exercise?

eagertolearn — Sun, 28 Nov 2004 21:49:27 GMT

I need to hand in this exercise but I want to make sure the grammar is right. I have doubts about the second sentence where it says "Down below..." is it right? Can we say "It can be observed several..."? Thanks for your help!

There are several linguistic resources that help people express genericity. Down below, it can be observed several forms that can also express something different than genericity.
In the first pair of sentences one find two degrees of genericity expressed by the zero determiner and the presence of a count plural noun. The sentence Park rangers are available is more specific than Park rangers are brave. As regards meaning, while in the first one the reference is made to a specific place; in the second one, one assumes that the reference is made to all the rangers in general, it implies they have to be brave in order to perform their duty.
Two ungrammatical constructions such as The blood irrigates our bodies and A dingo is indigenous to Australia can also be found. Here the speaker is trying to express genericity, but the article the makes it impossible. Thus it would be correct, if it said Blood irrigates our bodies, implying all bodies; and Dingos are indigenous to Australia, meaning all dingos.
The last cases are Blood is gushing out of his wound and Blood is full of nutrients. Both denote genericity by means of the lack of article. However, the first one makes reference to the blood of some man, through the use of the possessive adjective his; and the second one to everybodyâs blood. From this it can be concluded that the former sentence is more specific than the second one.
This exercise is an example of the system of qualification by which one expresses his or her perception of a thing or entity as a countable or uncountable mass noun, around two processes either relating to the semantic nature of entities which are lexicalized as mass or count or to the grammatical marking of entities (singular/plural, mass/count).