Grammar Safari -- quantifiers and sv agreement

Date: __________________________________
Base Camp:G-8 FLB
Partners: __________________________________
Game to be Hunted: Quantifiers and Subject/Verb Agreement problems


Schedule of Points to be Awarded: (IF correctly identified, or DEDUCTED if incorrectly identified!)

1 point: a few / a little .. planned on catching a few hours of sleep
Q as subject of verb showing number both captains SEEM to have resigned ...
2 points: hundreds / thousands, etc. Millions of people SPEAK English.
Either/Neither + verb showing number
(quantifier OR conjunction)		 neither reason nor mathematics nor maps WERE any use to me
all / both / each AFTER the noun/pronoun They all MADE fun of my plan then
3 points: a number of + verb showing number A number of students HAVE done well on the test
few / little the facts ... were of little importance.
none of / each (one) of / every one of
+ verb showing number		 none of these sentences IS in Korean.
4 points: fewer I found fewer good examples this time.
the number of + verb showing number the number of operating ones right now .. IS 14% of our electrical consumption
5 points: There is / are + N and N (no Q) There is a noun and a verb in every sentence.
majority / minority + verb showing number A majority of the examples CONTAIN nouns.
NOTE: Q = noun phrase or pronoun including a quantifier

INSTRUCTIONS

With your partner, find, copy, and identify as many of these quantifiers and other "game" as you can, analyse them, and save them before the end of this class period. (Refer to the instructions you have been given for hunting "common" game, using the FIND function). Remember to open a word-processing program, and then click here when you are ready to begin your Safari.

  • COPY ENTIRE SENTENCES, and include the sources of the sentences.
  • UNDERLINE each noun (or pronoun) modified, along with its article or adjectives (if there is a noun), and BOLD the quantifier. Indicate:
          whether the noun is definite or indefinite (or generic)
          and whether it is countable singular, countable plural, or noncount
  • INDICATE the points you have earned (see examples)

EXAMPLES

(PARTNERS' NAMES)

  1. . Q + sing. verb + a few = 1 + 1 = 2 points
    One view IS that he at first followed his father's business and resided at Genoa and Savona, but in one account Columbus says that he went to sea when he was 14. In any event, he was a pirate in the service of Rene d'Anjou early in the 1470s, and a few years later he went to the Greek island of Chios.
    indefinite/countable singular + indefinite/countable plural
    "Christopher Columbus", Encyclopedia Britannica http://www.eb.com:180/cgibin/g?DocF=macro/5001/42.html&bold=on&sw=Christopher&sw=Columbus&DBase= Articles&hits=10&context=all&ParagraphType=1&indexremove=off&bl=#first_hit

  2. . all after the pronoun = 2 points
    "They all made fun of my plan then; now even tailors wish to discover."
    definite (pronoun)/plural
    "Christopher Columbus", Encyclopedia Britannica http://www.eb.com:180/cgibin/g?DocF=macro/5001/42.html&bold=on&sw=Christopher&sw=Columbus&DBase= Articles&hits=10&context=all&ParagraphType=1&indexremove=off&bl=#first_hit

  3. . Q + plural verb = 1 point
    It is highly appropriate that some of the sailors who dared to join Columbus on his dangerous first journey WERE Jews escaping the Spanish Inquisition.
    definite/countable plural
    "Columbus should not be deemed a 'bad guy'" Daily Illini 10/12/95 http://www.illinimedia.com/di/archives/1995/October/12/dancol-opin2.html

  4. . the number of + singular verb = 4 points
    There are 33 reactors under construction, and the 33 that are under construction have 40,000 more megawatts of electrical output. And the number of operating ones right now (the 75,000 megawatts of electricity) IS 14% of our electrical consumption. (So that's... This corresponds to the 14%, not the stuff that we have planned.)
    indefinite / countable plural
    NE 197, Nuclear Engineering, lecture 2

    TOTAL: 9 points



HAPPY HUNTING!

Ann Salzmann
Intensive English Institute
University of Illinois