Week 9

Quantifiers
Lely T. Wijayanti
Bahasa Inggris
Universitas Jenderal Soedirman

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Quantifiers

Quantifiers are words to give some information about the number/quantity

of something (countable and uncountable)

Examples:
- Most healthy people eat breakfast every morning
- We ate some bread and butter.
- We saw lots of birds.

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Quantifiers for Countable &
Uncountable Nouns

all some more a lot of enough

no any most lots of less

We can use the above quantifiers with both countable and uncountable
nouns

Examples:
- We have lots of time to study before the exam
- Lots of students came to the prom last night

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Quantifiers for Countable &
Uncountable Nouns

plenty of heaps of a load of

loads of people tons of

The above words are the colloquial forms of quantifiers used with both
countable and uncountable nouns

Examples:
- We have plenty of time to study before the exam
- Sinta gave away plenty of souvenirs to her friends

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Quantifiers: Some & Any
1. The quantifier ‘any’ is normally used in negative and interrogative
sentences

Examples:
- Do you have any pets?
- Sinta gave away plenty of souvenirs to her friends

2. The quantifier some is normally used in positive sentence.

However, it can also be used for offers and requests.

Examples:
• We saw some lions at the zoo, but we didn’t see any tigers
• Would you like some tea?
• I want some oranges, please.
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Quantifiers with Countable Nouns
1. The following quantifiers can only be used with countable nouns

(not) many each ether (a) few

several both neither fewer

More colloquial forms used only with countable nouns:

a couple of hundreds of thousands of

Examples:
I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.
There were hundreds of people at the meeting.
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Quantifiers with Uncountable Nouns
1. The following quantifiers can only be used with uncountable nouns

(not) much A bit of A little

Examples:
Would you like to add a little honey?
Could I have a bit of sugar, please?

More colloquial forms used particularly with abstract nouns, such as time, money, and
trouble:

a great deal of A good deal of

Examples:
The family probably spent a great deal of money on the treatment.
He usually wastes a good deal of time playing online games.
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Quantifiers: Member of Groups
We put a noun directly after a quantifier when we are talking about
members of a group in general
Examples:
Few snakes are dangerous.
Most children love ice cream.
I don’t have enough money to buy a new phone.

But if we are talking about members of a specific group, we use ‘of the’ as well:

Examples:
Most of the snakes in Australia are dangerous.
He donates all (of) the money that he earned to the orphanage.
Both (of) the tables in my office are broken

Note: with ‘all’ and ‘both’, we don’t need to use ‘of’. We can say ‘all the …’ and ‘both the …’
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Quantifiers: Both, either, & neither
If we are talking about two people or things, we use the quantifiers
both, either and neither.

One restaurant Two restaurants More than two restaurants

The restaurant was closed Both the restaurants were
closed
The restaurant wasn’t Neither of the restaurants
open was open
I don’t think the restaurant I don’t think either of the
was open restaurants was open
All the restaurants were
closed
None of the restaurants
were open
I don’t think any of the
restaurants were open

Note: nouns with ‘both’ have a plural verb but nouns with ‘either’ and ‘neither’ have a singular verb.

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Quantifiers: every and each
We use the quantifier ‘every’ and ‘each’ with singular nouns to mean all.
Examples:
There was a bakery in every street (= All streets have a bakery)
Every shop was decorated with flowers (= All the shops were decorated with flowers)
Each child got a reward after the check-up (= All children got a reward after the check-up)
There was a prize in each competition (= All competitions have a prize)

We often use ‘every’ to talk about times like days, weeks, and years
Examples:
When we were children, we had holidays at our grandmother’s house every year.
When we stayed at my grandmother's house, we went to the beach every day.
We visit our daughter every Christmas.

We do not use a determiner with ’every’ and ’each’:

Examples:
Every shop was decorated with flowers. (NOT The every shop)
Each child was given a prize. (NOT The each child)
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Exercise

Make a paragraph which has a Public Health theme (min.5 sentences).

Each sentence should contain a quantifier. Try to use each type of quantifier
discussed in the previous slides.

Submit the paragraph in a pdf format before 1 May 2023 at 11.59 PM. If you
have any questions, please post it on the forum. Thank you.

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Daftar Pustaka

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/english-grammar-reference/quantifiers

Eastwood, J. (1994). Oxford guide to English grammar. Oxford University Press.

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THANK +6282264757477

YOU lely.tri@unsoed.ac.id

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