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CountandNonCountNouns

COUNTANDNONCOUNTNOUNS

Acountnounissomethingwecancount.Ithasasingularformandapluralform.
ex:onebook,threebooksaleg,twolegsanapple,sixapples
N.B.AsingularcountnounmusthaveaDeterminer.

Anoncountnounissomethingwedontcount.Ithasnopluralform.
Weusequantifiersbeforenoncountnouns:
ex:fruit,somefruitbread,asliceofbreadhomeworkalotofhomeworkinformation,alittle
information

Thefollowingarenoncountnouns:

Abstractnouns:
advice

health

music

art

help

news

beauty

homework

noise

confidence

honesty

nutrition

courage

hospitality

patience

crime

importance

patience

education

information

pride

enjoyment

intelligence

progress

experience

justice

slang

fun

knowledge

time

grammar

laughter

truth

happiness

life

unemployment

education

love

vocabulary

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CountandNonCountNouns

hate

luck

work

Groupswithindividualparts

cash

hardware

makeup

change

homework

money

clothing

jewelry

news

equipment

junk

postage

food

junk

research

fruit

luggage

scenery

furniture

machinery

slang

garbage

mail

traffic

Thingswithnodefiniteform:

Liquids

Gases

Solids

beer

air

butter

blood

carbonmonoxide

cheese

coffee

fire

cotton

cream

fog

film

gasoline

hydrogen

flour

honey

oxygen

glass

juice

pollution

ice

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CountandNonCountNouns

milk

smoke

icecream

oil

steam

meat

shampoo

powder

soup

salt

tea

soap

water

sugar

wine

toothpaste

wood
wool

Thingsthathavetinypartstoosmalltocount

corn

grass

salt

dirt

hair

sugar

dust

rice

wheat

darkness

heat

snow

dew

humidity

sunshine

electricity

light

thunder

fire

lightning

weather

fog

rain

wind

Naturalphenomena

gravity

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CountandNonCountNouns

Ailments

cancer

heartdisease

smallpox

cholera

malaria

strepthroat

flu

polio

art

history

music

biology

linguistics

physics

chemistry

literature

poetry

economics

mathematics

psychology

Academicsubjects

engineering

science

Languages

Russian,Spanish,French,etc.

Wordsthatcanbecountandnoncount

Food(noncount)

Animaloranimalpart(count)

chicken

achicken

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CountandNonCountNouns

lamb

alamb

liver

aliver

fish

afish

noncount

count(means"akindof___")

wine

awine,wines

food

afood,foods

fruit

afruit,fruits

meat

ameat,meats

education

aneducation

experience

anexperience

noncount

count

glass(thematerial)

aglass(somethingtoput
liquidin)

paper(thematerial)

apaper(areportor
newspaper)

aniron(forpressingclothes)

iron(themetal)

afire(onespecific
occurrenceoffire)

fire(thegas)

atime,times(aspecific
occurrenceorperiod)

time(anabstract
idea)

Determiners:

Articles:

Possessives:

Quantifiers:

a/an(indefinite)

my

some

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CountandNonCountNouns

the(definite)

our

afew

yours

lotsof

Demonstratives:

their

several

this

her

each

that

his

every

these

its

any

those

most
many
all
much
no

SendquestionsorcommentstoMaryNellSorensen(marynell@u.washington.edu),Webmaster
Copyright1997

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