Indefinite Determiners
Indefinite determiners are determiners that express quantity or the indefinite ideas of quality. They agree in number and gender with the noun they modify.
What Are Indefinite Determiners?
When we want to indicate the quantity of unknown nouns or noun phrases, we use indefinite determiners. Mainly, these determiners are used to answer questions that start with 'how much' and 'how many'.
English Indefinite Determiners
There are two groups of indefinite determiners in English. Look at the list below:
- Indefinite Pre-determiners
- Indefinite Post-determiners
Indefinite Pre-determiners
'Both', 'all', and other indefinite partitives are categorized as indefinite pre-determiners. The following list presents some of the most common indefinite determiners in English:
Now, let us see how each group is used in different contexts.
All and Both
These determiners are the only ones that do not need a preposition with them. Let us study the following examples:
A Lot of, Lots of, Plenty of, Enough of, Several of
These terms are all indefinite pre-determiners that indicate the number of things. Remember that 'several of' and 'plenty of' are only used with plural nouns. The other terms can be used with both countable and uncountable nouns. Let us examine the examples:
Warning!
Remember to always add the preposition 'of' to this group of pre-determiners. Otherwise, the sentences will not make sense.
None of, Any of
'None' is used when we want to indicate that there are no members or objects of a particular group. However, 'any' is used in questions and negative sentences to refer to one or more members or objects of a particular group. 'None' is only used with plural countable nouns, while 'any' can be used with both plural countable and uncountable nouns. Take a look at the following examples:
Does
I don't need
Indefinite Post-determiners
This group of determiners mainly consists of quantifiers. Take a look at the following list to get to know them:
Now, take a look at some examples:
They received