A great many

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 11:45 am

An astute student (Doncha hate them?

) asked me what the grammar of "a great many" is. I bluffed for a while, as you do, saying that I hadn't a clue but supposed that here "many" at first glance looked like some kind of strange noun but that "a many" wouldn't work anywhere else. What might I have said?

JapanG · Post by **JapanG** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 12:08 pm

Its an adjective. Some need "a" like "a few" "a lot" or "a little".

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 4:30 pm

It's funny how it's always the "astute" students who don't appreciate that as soon as you put start language into boxes, there will be words and phrases which either fall outside them or fit into more than one.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:18 pm

According to the 'Cambridge Grammar of the English Language' p 394 'a great many' is a fused determiner.

It does make sense to treat 'many' in 'many students' as a determiner. like 'the' or 'these' in 'the students' or 'these students'.

In 'A University Grammar of English' there is no direct reference to the phrase though you could infer they consider it a phrasal quanifier.

In other sentences 'great' is used as an intensifier.

Just give your student the above references. Should make him less inclined to ask the next time

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 7:47 pm

I like the sound of both "a fused determiner" and "a phrasal quantifier". Either has a thoroughly convincing ring about it that should send even the most troublesome questioner away sharpishly, especially important when my break is being impinged upon.

I don't think for a moment that "many" is always a noun and am aware that "many" by itself is categorised as an adjective.

Nevertheless the gap in "A great ____ of our students" would generally be thought to be filled with some kind of noun (friend, scourge, horde).

What's more there's this from Merriam-Webster online:

"Function: noun, plural in construction
1 : a large but indefinite number <a good many of them>
2 : the great majority of people <the many> "

And "lot" and "deal" are after all nouns in their own right as well as making up "fused phrasal quantifying determiners"

Macavity · Post by **Macavity** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 4:31 pm

I have the feeling there's a pronoun trying to make a break for it here. Isn't that the case then? I'm no linguist and defer to your greater knowledge; but my teaching instincts lead me in this direction......

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 8:40 pm

Well, Merriam-Webster online has three entries: 1) adjective (many people) 2 pronoun (many are chosen) and 3) noun (a great/good many(of)). My trusty Chambers agrees.

So I doubt if the word is susceptible to any blanket definition. It exhibits adjective- or pronoun- or determiner- or noun-like behaviour or sometimes a bit of some or all of them. "a good many of our students" seems most noun-like, "a good many students" is wandering towards the adjectival (though it's a funny adjective to be modified by another with an "a" in front if you ask me) whereas "a good many are students" seeems to be your pronoun, more or less.

All in all it doesn't want to be boxed and labelled. It can even have a singular verb "Many's the time that ..."

Macavity · Post by **Macavity** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 10:21 pm

Thanks. I wasn't questioning the adjective angle, though! This was all quite clear - fused determiner (I like that). I only wanted to confirm that it depends on the context in which the phrase is being put to use. Glad my instincts were OK; and even more so that I wasn't asked to come up with an explanation on the spot on this one

The sort of moment when you wish the ground would open up and swallow the student, I should imagine