aaz --
As you certainly know, the use of "determiners" (or "articles") is a
tricky subject, especially for those whose first language is not
English. I think I can be of most help to you by providing a direct
answer to your question with a concise explanation, while pointing you
to websites that seem to me to provide particularly clear discussion
of the subject of mass nouns and determiners.
The answer to your question is that your two examples are grammatical.
This is true because singular mass nouns do not *require*
determiners:
"Singular mass nouns, and plural countable nouns, may occur without
any determiner."
University College London: Nouns
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/tta/wc/nouns.htm
"Mass nouns don?t require a determiner in the singular:
'I gave him wine. '"
USC: Information Sciences Institute: Syntax, Lecture 2: Jerry R. Hobbs
http://www.isi.edu/natural-language/teaching/cs544/cs544-2-jan04.ppt
My answer does not mean that determiners are never used with mass
nouns. While some determiners (especially numbers, as in "I want two
soaps") cannot generally be used grammatically with such nouns, some
can. In fact, the word some" may be the most common example of a
determiner often used with singular mass nouns. They are just not
required, either generally or in your examples.
For example, saying simply "I want ice cream" is not only perfectly
grammatical, but also perfectly understandable, if you are sitting in
a restaurant with a friend discussing your options for dessert.
However, out of politeness some people might add a determiner like
"some" or "a little" when the hostess at a dinner party offers a
choice of desserts. Both versions are grammatical.
Similarly, "Give me soap" is a perfectly grammatical construction,
but, if you are in a laundromat with your roommate and forgot your
Tide, I think that you are more likely to say "Give me some soap
[detergent]" so that it is clear that you do not need the whole box.
So, the choice of whether to use a determiner with a mass noun is
generally optional and dependent on whether a word like "some" is
necessary or appropriate for the context in which you are using the
noun.
Additional Information:
The two sites I linked above contain particularly clear and useful
treatments of the grammatical issue that interests you, and I suggest
that you might want to spend some time reviewing them.
Here, from another useful site, is a list of determiners that are
commonly used with mass nouns:
"With noncount nouns you can use some, any, much, more, most, enough,
other, the other, such, little, a little, less, least, all, all of
the, a lot of, a large amount of, no, etc."
Old Dominion University: Determiners
http://web.odu.edu/al/wts/determ.htm
Finally, here is another site that provides some clear discussion on
the issue of determiners (here called "articles"):
University of North Carolina: The Writing Center: Articles
http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/articles.html
Search Strategy:
Here are examples of the Google searches that led me to the
information and to confirmation of its accuracy:
"mass nouns" determiners
://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&lr=&q=%22mass+nouns%22+%22+determiners%22
"mass nouns" "require determiners"
://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&lr=&q=%22mass+nouns%22+%22require+determiners%22
I am confident that this is the information you are seeking. If
anything is unclear, please ask for clarification before rating the
answer.
markj-ga |
