- 16 - Mass Nouns and Count Nouns I don't own much furniture Of
the quantifiers discussed in the last section, one set is
particularly troublesome. When used as independent pronouns,
many and few are generally used for people and other animate
beings, with much and less being used for everything else. The
first pair can also appear as nominals with determiners: (1) He
seemed mad to many. (2) He didn't do much. (3) They attracted
few. (4) He gave less to the church. (5) They attracted a few.
(6) He seemed mad to the many. When used as postdeterminers,
however, much and less (and little when used for quantities) are
used only with a special group of nouns called mass nouns (or
non-count because they cannot be counted. Most English nouns, of
course, are count nouns and a few can be used in both ways
(e.g., trouble). The list of mass nouns is pretty arbitrary, and
we simply have to learn it as we learn the nouns that compose
this. Native speakers generally seem to do this, but it can be a
hard distinction to mast