
Many such phrases can alternatively be analyzed as nouns followed by a preposition, but their treatment as phrasal determiners is supported by the fact that the resulting noun phrase takes the number of the following noun, not the noun in the phrase ( a lot of people would take a plural verb, even though lot is singular). Phrases expressing similar meanings to the above: a lot of, lots of, plenty of, a great deal of, tons of, etc.

Note that unmodified much is quite rarely used in affirmative statements in colloquial English. The basic forms can be modified with adverbs, especially very, too and so (and not can also be added). Where two forms are given, the first is used with non-count nouns and the second with count nouns (although in colloquial English less and least are frequently also used with count nouns).


These can be made more emphatic with the addition of own or very own. Possessives, including those corresponding to pronouns – my, your, his, her, its, our, their, whose – and the Saxon genitives formed from other nouns, pronouns and noun phrases ( one's, everybody's, Mary's, a boy's, the man we saw yesterday's).The demonstratives this and that, with respective plural forms these and those.Definite determiners, which imply that the referent of the resulting noun phrase is defined specifically:.The following is a rough classification of determiners used in English, including both words and phrases:
