Delahunty and Garvey
ple, platoon names the class of a particular type of collection of soldiers; team
names the class of collections of people gathered together for some common
purpose. Nouns that name classes of collections are called collective nouns.
Other examples include army and congress. In American English, collective
nouns normally take a singular verb (e.g., The jury is out), while in British
English they take a plural (e.g., The jury are out). The American variety some-
times uses the plural to suggest lack of unity within the group (e.g., The jury
are divided). Pronoun substitutes for collectives are also normally singular in
American and plural in British English.
An important subdivision of nouns, particularly for people learning Eng-
lish as a second language, is between count and non-count (also called mass)
nouns. Some non-count nouns are thought of as representing things as if they
were undifferentiated masses whose parts are not identified as discrete units
(rice, sugar, milk, news). Count nouns represent entities that can be individu-
ated and counted (typewriter, diskette, page). It follows that a piece of news is
still news, but a piece of a diskette is not a diskette.
Formally, count nouns may be singular and plural (cup, cups); non-count
nouns are typically singular (information, informations). Count nouns may
be preceded by the indefinite article (a day); non-count nouns may not (a
furniture). Count nouns may be preceded by many (many bikes), while non-
count nouns may not (many dust). Count nouns may be preceded by not
many (not many kittens); non-count nouns may not be (not many wealth).
Non-count nouns may be preceded by not much (not much rice/wealth); count
nouns may not be (*not much books).
If the head of the subject of a sentence is a non-count noun, then the verb
will be in the singular (The milk is in the fridge), but if the head is a count
noun, the number of the verb will depend on the number of the noun (cf. The
bottle is in the fridge; The bottles are in the fridge).
Zero derivation can recategorize count and non-count nouns. Non-count
nouns may become count nouns, and as a result may be pluralized. However,
they undergo a semantic shift—for example, to either type of something (e.g.,
the cheeses made in Wisconsin) or unit of something (e.g., three coffees). Analo-
gously, count nouns may be recategorized as non-count nouns, but they also
undergo a semantic shift, for example, from individuals of the count noun
category (He caught a fish), to stuff derived from the individuals (He likes to eat
fish).
Exercise
- Using the grammatical characteristics just discussed, say whether