Determiners:
Determiners
are words like the, an, my, some.
They are grammatically similar. They all come at the beginning of noun phrases,
and usually we cannot use more than one determiner in the same noun phrase.
Articles:
Possessive
Adjectives:
- my, your, his, her, its, our,
their, whose
Other
determiners:
- each, every
- either, neither
- some, any, no
- much, many; more, most
- little, less, least
- few, fewer, fewest
- what, whatever; which,
whichever
- both, half, all
- several
- enough
Predeterminers:
The predeterminers occur
prior to other determiners (as you would probably guess from their name). This
class of words includes multipliers (double, twice, four/five times .
. . .); fractional expressions (one-third, three-quarters, etc.);
the words both, half, and all; and intensifiers
such as quite, rather, and such.
The multipliers precede plural count and mass
nouns and occur with singular count nouns denoting number or amount:
- This
van holds three times the passengers as that
sports car.
- My
wife is making double my / twice my salary.
- This
time we added five times the amount of water.
In fractional expressions, we have a similar
construction, but here it can be replaced with "of" construction.
- Charlie
finished in one-fourth [of] the time his brother took.
- Two-fifths
of the respondents reported that half
the medication was sufficient.
The intensifiers occur in this construction primarily in
casual speech and writing and are more common in British English than they are
in American English. The intensifier "what" is often found in
stylistic fragments: "We visited my brother in his dorm room. What a
mess!"
- This
room is rather a mess, isn't it?
- The
ticket-holders made quite a fuss when they couldn't get
in.
- What
an idiot he turned out to
be.
- Our
vacation was such a grand experience.
Half, both, and all can occur with singular and
plural count nouns; half and all can
occur with mass nouns. There are also "of constructions"
with these words ("all [of] the grain," "half [of] his
salary"); the "of construction" is required with
personal pronouns ("both of them," "all of it").
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