What is a Quantifier?

A quantifier is a word or, sometimes, a phrase that indicates the number or amount of something referred to. It tells us about the quantity of a noun. It usually comes before the noun it quantifies. In English, quantifiers are categorized under determiners. There are simple quantifiers (e.g, all, many, some, etc) and there are complex quantifiers (e.g, a lot of, a few, etc). I will make effort, in this article, to explain the proper use of three quantifiers that are often misused.

How to Use “many”, “much” and “a lot of”

The above quantifiers are used to talk about something that exists in large quantity.

‘Many’ is used with countable nouns.

Example

·        Many persons have been reported killed by the Nyanya bomb blast.

‘Much’ is used with uncountable nouns.

Example

·        He has much grain in his store.

‘A lot of’ can be used for both countable and uncountable nouns.

Examples

·        There is a lot of food in the house. (Used with uncountable noun)

·        A lot of people were prevented from visiting the President on his return from medical vacation. (Used with countable noun).

It should be noted that only ‘many’ and ‘much’ can be used to make an interrogative statement (i.e a statement of question). To arrive at that, they are preceded by ‘how.’ E.g, how many?, how much?

We should also understand that ‘many’ and ‘much’ are very formal in use. They are mostly found in formal documents. On the other hand, ‘a lot of’ is mostly used in speech. That is to say that it is used only in spoken English.

Don’t forget to come with as I discuss the use of ‘few’, ‘a few’, ‘little’ and ‘a little’ in my next article. Thank you for reading. Remember to stay out of sin and live a life that is worthy of emulation. Thank you.