◄ Countable vs. uncountable nouns | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 |

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[Countable vs. uncountable nouns #8]

Task (1): Which of the following nouns have been used as uncountable nouns in the corpus (give an example of each)? anger, dollar, fish, noise, suitcase
Task (2): Which of the following nouns have been used as countable nouns in the corpus (give an example of each)? furniture, luggage, news, rule, time
Task (3): Which of the following nouns have been used as both uncountable and countable nouns in the corpus (give an example of each)? coin, light, paper, rice, scenery
Task (4): Classify the nouns (in Task (3)) that were NOT used both as uncountables and countables, and give examples of their uses.



Suggested answer:
(1) Anger, fish, and noise have been used as uncountable nouns in the corpus. Examples:
... people of his own village were filled with anger to such a point that they dragged him out of the synagogue...
Each of them is eating fish.
All he heard was noise...

(2) Rule and time have been used as countable nouns in the corpus. Examples:
We made a rule about that.
He looked through all the papers a third time for anything about the Miles case.

(3) Light and paper have been used as both countables and uncountables:
The lights are off. (countable light
Some light was reflected from below... (uncountable light
You cannot pick up a local paper without seeing his face. (countable paper
He produced a slip of paper. (uncountable paper

(4) The noun coin has been used as a countable noun only, e.g.
...gave each little girl a coin.

The noun rice has only been used as an uncountable noun, e.g.
Then they give us sacks of rice and cash...

The noun scenery has only been used as an uncountable noun, e.g.
...in what had once been familiar scenery.

Read about countable and uncountable nouns here and here
Terminology: countable noun, uncountable noun

Last updated 4 October 2023, SOE
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