 A difficulty for this approach is to specify, for any mass noun M, what the “portions of M” are. This difficulty appears especially clearly with definite descriptions, as in The gold on the table weighs fifty grams. If the description the gold on the table denotes the set having for elements everything that is gold on the table, then how can we evaluate the truth of the sentence? It would not do to give the sum of all weights (cf. Bunt 1985: 41). So it seems we must impose restrictions on the elements of the set [the gold on the table].[9]