Knowing the difference between count
and noncount nouns will help you do the following:
- Use the noun plural ending -s correctly
- Use the appropriate type of article: definite (the) or indefinite (a or an)
- Use words that express quantities, such as little, much, . . .
Count vs. Noncount
The main difference between count
and noncount nouns is whether or not the things they refer to can be counted.
Count nouns refer to things that can be divided up into smaller
units which are separate and distinct from one another. They usually refer to
what can individually be seen or heard:
|
table
chair
word
remark
|
finger
bottle
award
candidate
|
Noncount nouns refer to things that cannot be counted because they
are regarded as wholes which cannot be divided into parts. They often refer to
abstractions and occasionally have a collective meaning:
|
anger
furniture
warmth
leisure
|
education
courage
progress
weather
|
Illustration:
Think of the batter from which a cake is made. Before putting the batter into
the oven, you cannot divide it into its parts because it is a liquid mix. Once
it has been baked, however, it becomes solid enough to be cut into pieces.
Think of noncount nouns as the batter which forms a mass, and think of the
pieces of cake as the count nouns which may be numbered and distributed.
Pluralizing
The Rules
- Count nouns can be pluralized by adding a final -s to the nouns.
- Noncount nouns cannot be not pluralized at all.
This rule works for the nouns in the list of examples
in the first section.
Exception:
The rule needs to be slightly revised for a number of nouns. Certain nouns in
English belong to both classes: they have both a noncount and a count meaning.
Normally, the noncount meaning is abstract and general, and the count meaning
is concrete and specific.
Compare
the changes in meaning of the following nouns if they work as count or noncount
nouns:
|
Count
|
Noncount
|
|
|
The researcher had to overcome
some specific problems to collect the data.
|
The researcher had no problem
finding studies that supported his view.
|
|
|
The political arguments
took the nation to a situation of political instability.
|
The author's argument was
unsupported and stereotypical.
|
|
|
There were bright lights
and harsh sounds.
|
Light travels faster than sound.
|
Special Case:
A special case is the use of the mass/count distinction for the purpose of
classification. The nouns which function both ways mainly denote foods and
beverages: food(s), drink(s), wine(s), bread(s), coffee(s), and fruit(s).
Examples:
|
Units
|
Mass
|
|
Several types of French wines are
grown in the French Riviera.
|
The crops of Columbia coffee are
more resistant to dry climate than are the crops of Brazilian coffee.
|
A Revision of the RulesThe exceptions require that the rule for pluralizing be
revised: count nouns and nouns used in a count sense can be pluralized;
noncount nouns and nouns used in a noncount sense cannot.
|
Pluralizes
with -s
|
Does
not Pluralize
|
|
|
Count Noun
|
X
|
|
|
Count Use
|
X
|
|
|
Noncount Noun
|
X
|
|
|
Noncount Use
|
X
|
Nouns that Take Articles
Choosing which article to use with a
noun is a complex matter because the range of choices depends on whether the
noun in question is count or noncount, singular or plural.
The following chart shows which
articles go together with which kinds of nouns. The demonstratives (this,
that, these, those) have been included because they also
mark the noun they modify as definite or specific.
|
A/An
|
The
|
This/That
|
These/Those
|
||
|
Count
|
Singular
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
Plural
|
X
|
X
|
|||
|
Noncount
|
Singular
|
X
|
X
|
||
|
Plural
|
Note: Noncount nouns are always singular.
© 1997,
1998, 1999 The Write Place
 |
This
page was originally written by Mark Le Tourneau at Purdue University. It was
revised and then redesigned for the Web by Maggie Escalas for the Write Place,
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educational purposes only. If you copy this document, please include our
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Last
Update: 5 October 1999
URL:
http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/grammar/countnon.html
Count and Non-Count Nouns
Introduction
In English, there are two kinds of nouns: count nouns and non-count nouns. It is important to understand the difference between them, because they often use different articles, and non-count nouns usually have no plural. Here is a summary of the differences:|
Type of noun
|
Explanation
|
Example
|
|
Count nouns
|
Count nouns are things which can be counted. That means
that there can be more than one of them. Also, when a count noun is singular
and indefinite, the article “a/an” is often used with it. (The real meaning
of “a” is “one”.)
|
“There are two books on the table.” “There is an elephant in my car.” |
|
Non-count nouns
|
Non-count nouns (or uncounted nouns) are usually things
which cannot be counted, such as rice or water. Non-count nouns have a
singular form, but when they are indefinite, we either use the word “some” or
nothing at all instead of an article.
|
“Could I have some water please?” “I'd like rice with my steak.” |
How to tell whether a noun is count or non-count
You can usually work out whether a noun is count or non-count by thinking about it. Count nouns are usually objects which can be counted. Non-count nouns are often substances (such as sand, water or rice) which cannot be easily counted, or they may be large abstract ideas such as “nature”, “space” or “entertainment”. Here are some more examples:|
Count nouns
|
Non-count nouns
|
|
pen
table car idea answer class exam shoe |
education
intelligence clothing soap air cheese grass literature |
The Noncount Noun
Recognize a noncount noun when you see one.
Nouns name people, places, and things. Many nouns have both a singular and plural form: a surfer/surfers, a restaurant/restaurants, a pickle/pickles. Some nouns, however, have only a singular form; you cannot add a number to the front or an s to the end of these words. This group of nouns is called noncount.Read the following examples:
After two months of rainstorms,
Fred carries his umbrella everywhere in anticipation of more bad weather.
Rainstorms = count noun; weather
= noncount noun.
Because Big Toe Joe has ripped all four chairs
with his claws, Diane wants to buy new furniture
and find the cat another home.
Chairs = count noun; furniture
= noncount noun.
When Mrs. Russell postponed the date of the research paper, smiles lit up the faces of her students, filling the
room with happiness.
Smiles = count noun; happiness
= noncount noun.
Because the beautiful Josephine will help Pablo with his
calculus assignments, he never minds the homework from Dr. Ribley's class.
Assignments = count noun; homework = noncount noun.Know the different categories of noncount nouns.
The chart below illustrates the different types of noncount nouns. Remember that these categories include other nouns that are count. For example, lightning, a natural event [one of the categories], is noncount, but hurricane, a different natural event, is a count noun. When you don't know what type of noun you have, consult a dictionary that provides such information.|
Category
|
Examples
|
|
Abstractions
|
advice, courage, enjoyment, fun, help, honesty,
information, intelligence, knowledge, patience, etc.
|
|
Activities
|
chess, homework, housework, music, reading, singing,
sleeping, soccer, tennis, work, etc.
|
|
Food
|
beef, bread, butter, fish, macaroni, meat, popcorn, pork,
poultry, toast, etc.
|
|
Gases
|
air, exhaust, helium, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen,
pollution, smog, smoke, steam, etc.
|
|
Groups of Similar Items
|
baggage, clothing, furniture, hardware, luggage,
equipment, mail, money, software, vocabulary, etc.
|
|
Liquids
|
blood, coffee, gasoline, milk, oil, soup, syrup, tea,
water, wine, etc.
|
|
Natural Events
|
electricity, gravity, heat, humidity, moonlight, rain,
snow, sunshine, thunder, weather, etc.
|
|
Materials
|
aluminum, asphalt, chalk, cloth, concrete, cotton, glue,
lumber, wood, wool, etc.
|
|
Particles or Grains
|
corn, dirt, dust, flour, hair, pepper, rice, salt, sugar,
wheat, etc.
|
Know how to indicate number with noncount nouns.
Thunder, a noncount noun, cannot have an s added at the end. You can, however, lie awake in bed counting the number of times you hear thunder boom during a storm.When you want to indicate number with a noncount word, you have two options. First, you can put of in front of the noncount word and then attach the resulting prepositional phrase to an appropriate count word. For example, you can write that you heard seven claps of thunder.
A second option is to make the noncount noun an adjective that you place before a count noun. Then you could write a sentence like this:
Thunderheads filled the sky.
Here are some more examples:|
Noncount Noun
|
Countable Version
|
|
advice
|
pieces of advice
|
|
homework
|
homework assignments
|
|
bread
|
loaves of bread, slices of bread
|
|
smoke
|
puffs of smoke, plumes of smoke
|
|
software
|
software applications
|
|
wine
|
bottles of wine, glasses of wine
|
|
snow
|
snow storms, snow flakes, snow drifts
|
|
cloth
|
bolts of cloth, yards of cloth
|
|
dirt
|
piles of dirt, truckloads of dirt
|
Understand that some nouns are both noncount and count.
Sometimes a word that means one thing as a noncount noun has a slightly different meaning if it also has a countable version. Remember, then, that the classifications count and noncount are not absolute.Time is a good example. When you use this word to mean the unceasing flow of experience that includes past, present, and future, with no distinct beginning or end, then time is a noncount noun. Read this example:
Time dragged as Simon sat through
yet another boring chick flick with his girlfriend Roseanne.
Time = noncount because it has no specific
beginning and, for poor Simon, no foreseeable end.When time refers to a specific experience which starts at a certain moment and ends after a number of countable units [minutes, hours, days, etc.], then the noun is count. Here is an example:
On his last to Disney World, Joe rode Space Mountain
twenty-seven times.
Times = count because a ride on Space Mountain
is a measurable unit of experience, one that you can clock with a stopwatch.
