THE MEANS OF EXPRESSING SMALL QUANTITIES (ENGLISH NOUNS USED AS AN EXAMPLE)
The article discusses the use of English small size nouns in the construction with the preposition of. With the exception of the construction a bit of and the construction a whiff of to some degree, all of these words used both within the above-mentioned construction and outside of this construction are characterized by a low frequency of usage, which is conditioned by a wide selection of small size nouns to pick from. The small size nouns individually display very specific connections with the poles of the quantity scale ‘availability of substance lack of substance’. The article contains a list of the main members of the noun group under discussion, considering the currently central problem of their grammatical status, and poses some more problems which require further investigation.
Keywords: noun, small quantity, small size, construction, polarity, grammaticalization
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Issue: 10, 2014
Series of issue: Issue 10
Rubric: GERMANIC AND ROMANIC LANGUAGES
Pages: 29 — 33
Downloads: 780