Noun whose quantity is treated as an undifferentiated unit
Not to be confused with Collective noun.
Grammatical features
Related to nouns
Animacy
Case
Dative construction
Dative shift
Quirky subject
Nominative
Comitative
Instrumental
Classifier
Measure word
Construct state
Countability
Count noun
Mass noun
Collective noun
Definiteness
Gender
Genitive construction
Possession
Suffixaufnahme (case stacking)
Noun class
Number
Singular
Dual
Plural
Singulative-Collective-Plurative
Specificity
Universal grinder
Related to verbs
Associated motion
Clusivity
Conjugation
Evidentiality
Modality
Person
Telicity
Mirativity
Tense–aspect–mood
Grammatical aspect
Lexical aspect (Aktionsart)
Mood
Tense
Voice
General features
Affect
Boundedness
Comparison (degree)
Egophoricity
Pluractionality (verbal number)
Honorifics (politeness)
Polarity
Reciprocity
Reflexive pronoun
Reflexive verb
Syntax relationships
Argument
Transitivity
Valency
Branching
Serial verb construction
Traditional grammar
Predicate
Subject
Object
Adjunct
Predicative
Semantics
Contrast
Mirativity
Thematic relation
Agent
Patient
Topic and Comment
Focus
Volition
Veridicality
Phenomena
Agreement
Polypersonal agreement
Declension
Empty category
Incorporation
Inflection
Markedness
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In linguistics, a mass noun, uncountable noun, non-count noun, uncount noun, or just uncountable, is a noun with the syntactic property that any quantity of it is treated as an undifferentiated unit, rather than as something with discrete elements. Non-count nouns are distinguished from count nouns.
Given that different languages have different grammatical features, the actual test for which nouns are mass nouns may vary between languages. In English, mass nouns are characterized by the impossibility of being directly modified by a numeral without specifying a unit of measurement and by the impossibility of being combined with an indefinite article (a or an). Thus, the mass noun "water" is quantified as "20 litres of water" while the count noun "chair" is quantified as "20 chairs". However, both mass and count nouns can be quantified in relative terms without unit specification (e.g., "so much water", "so many chairs", though note the different quantifiers "much" and "many").
Mass nouns have no concept of singular and plural, although in English they take singular verb forms. However, many mass nouns in English can be converted to count nouns, which can then be used in the plural to denote (for instance) more than one instance or variety of a certain sort of entity – for example, "Many cleaning agents today are technically not soaps [i.e. types of soap], but detergents," or "I drank about three beers [i.e. bottles or glasses of beer]".
Some nouns can be used indifferently as mass or count nouns, e.g., three cabbages or three heads of cabbage; three ropes or three lengths of rope. Some have different senses as mass and count nouns: paper is a mass noun as a material (three reams of paper, one sheet of paper), but a count noun as a unit of writing ("the students passed in their papers").
In linguistics, a massnoun, uncountable noun, non-count noun, uncount noun, or just uncountable, is a noun with the syntactic property that any quantity...
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and...
are examples of all the properties of count nouns holding for the count noun chair, but not for the massnoun furniture. Occurrence in plural. There is...
In linguistics, a collective noun is a word referring to a collection of things taken as a whole. Most collective nouns in everyday speech are not specific...
where more is an adjective. Similarly, more-beautiful scenery (with a mass-noun) is distinct from more beautiful scenery. (In contrast, the hyphen in...
transcription delimiters. English plurals include the plural forms of English nouns and English determiners. This article discusses the variety of ways in which...
a noun, and the noun is specially marked to indicate a single item. This is the opposite of the more common singular–plural pattern, where a noun is...
noun adjunct in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. In grammar, a noun adjunct, attributive noun, qualifying noun, noun (pre)modifier, or apposite noun is...
and are used with massnouns (uncountable nouns), and in some cases also with count nouns. For instance, in English, mud is a massnoun and thus one cannot...
In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent...
(glossed PRO) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts...
linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related...
category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This default quantity is most...
a result, bare nouns have attracted extensive study in the fields of both semantics and syntax. In English, vocatives and massnouns are felicitous in...
English, such words are almost always massnouns. Some uncountable nouns can be alternatively used as count nouns when meaning "a type of", and the plural...
Look up verbal noun in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Historically, grammarians have described a verbal noun or gerundial noun as a verb form that functions...
Together with a noun, as in my car, your sisters, his boss. Here the possessive form serves as a possessive determiner. Without an accompanying noun, as in mine...
syntax of an utterance with a noun provides children with cues to whether the noun is a massnoun or count noun. Massnouns are used for objects whose components...
case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or...
word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally adjectives are considered...
preposition/particle to after the noun. An English preposition can never follow its noun, so if we can change verb - P - noun to verb - noun - P, then P cannot be...
[citation needed] The initialism DLC may be treated as a massnoun ("three DLC") or a count noun ("three DLCs"), depending on the writer. Downloadable content...
The nouns of the German language have several properties, some unique. As in many related Indo-European languages, German nouns possess a grammatical...
grinder is the idea that in some languages, most count nouns can be used as if they were massnouns, which causes a slight change in their meaning. The term...
existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in...
and mass-classifier, since the first type can only meaningfully be used with count nouns, while the second is used particularly with massnouns. However...
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