  With the other quantifiers (little, much, most, two liters of…), one seems to say something about the quantity of M (little gold) or intensity of M (little wisdom). Let us suppose that a mass noun M has an associated function, μ, that measures quantity or intensity. We focus here on mass nouns that apply to concrete entities, like water or furniture (see section 10 for “abstract” mass nouns). In that case, it is handy (though perhaps not necessary) to suppose that μ is monotonic: