· I haven't got much rice.

Countable Nouns

Countable nouns are easy to recognize. They are things that we can count. For example: "pen". We can count pens. We can have one, two, three or more pens. Here are some more countable nouns:

dog, cat, animal, man, person

bottle, box, litre

coin, note, dollar

cup, plate, fork

table, chair, suitcase, bag

Countable nouns can be singular or plural:

My dog is playing.

My dogs are hungry.

We can use the indefinite article a/an with countable nouns:

A dog is an animal.

When a countable noun is singular, we must use a word like a/the/my/this with it:

I want an orange. (not I want orange.)

Where is my bottle? (not Where is bottle?)

When a countable noun is plural, we can use it alone:

I like oranges.

Bottles can break.

We can use some and any with countable nouns:

I've got some dollars.

Have you got any pens?

We can use a few and many with countable nouns:

I've got a few dollars.

I haven't got many pens.

Bibliography

1. A Brief Handbook by Ann Raimes. Houghton Mifflin: New York. 1996.

2. Laycock, Henry. (2005) 'Mass nouns, Count nouns and Non-count nouns' Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics . Oxford: Elsevier.

3. “Theoretical grammar of the English language” B.S. Khaimovich, B.I. Rogovskaya. Moscow, 1967 y.

4. Laycock, Henry. (2006) Words without Objects . Oxford: Clarendon Press.

5. Merrifield, William (1959). Classification of Kiowa nouns. International Journal of American Linguistics , 25 , 269-271.