Quantifiers A Lot Most

Quantifiers – a lot of – most


Introduction


1) Quantifiers are adjectives and adjectival phrases that give approximate or specific answers to the questions ‘How much?’ and ‘How many?’.

Sorry, but there isn’t much left for you to do here.
2) To answer the questions ‘How much?’ and ‘How many?’ certain quantifiers can be used with countable nouns (chairs, apples), while others can be used with uncountable nouns (tea, money). We use much with uncountable nouns and many with countable nouns.
Note that much and many are mainly used in interrogative and negative sentences.

How many cousins do you have? (countable)
How much money did you spend? (uncountable)

Note that in spoken English and informal writing when we want to indicate a large quality of something we tend to use a lot, a lot of, lots of.

A lot means very often or very much. It is used as an adverb. It often comes at the end of a sentence and never before a noun.

My brother plays football a lot.
She’s a lot happier after quitting her job.

A lot of is more formal than lots of. They both mean a large amount or number of people or things and they can be used with plural countable nouns and with singular uncountable nouns for affirmatives, negatives, and questions.

That’s a lot of money.
There are a lot of great students here.
We’ve got lots of things to do today.

We use the quantifier most to talk about quantities, amounts and degree. We can use it with a noun (as a determiner) or without a noun (as a pronoun). We can also use it with adjectives and adverbs to form the superlative.



We use most with nouns in the meaning the majority of. If there is no article, demonstrative or possessive pronoun, we use most right before the noun.

Most tap water is drinkable.
When we are talking about the majority of a specific set of something, we use most of the + noun.

Most cakes are sweet. (cakes in general)
The party was amazing. Kate made most of the cakes herself. (a specific set of cakes at the party)

We can leave out the noun with most when the noun is obvious from the context.

Students can eat in the cafeteria but most bring food from home. (=most students)