CC BY-ND
57
Journal of Language & Education
Volume 2, Issue 1, 2016
Constructions Expressing Inaccurate Quantity: Functions and Status in Modern English
Ludmila Petrochenko
Tomsk State Pedagogical University
Nina Zhukova
National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University
The article reviews lexical units expressing evaluative (inaccurate and / or unspecified) measurement in Modern English. This measurement is located on the periphery of scientific and traditional metric systems, but, as revealed through the research, has great significance for operational partitioning and measuring different kinds of objects in everyday life of native English speakers.
However, there are no detailed descriptions of lexical representation for evaluative measurement in the English language; existing papers do not approach the issue systematically. The article, based on the British National Corpus and English dictionaries, as well as extracts from modern American fiction, is the result of analyzing and systematizing the constructions, or patterns, expressing inaccurate and unspecified quantities in Modern English. Finally, the article provides a list of such constructions and the corresponding classification based on their functions as specific classifiers; studies the structure of each type distinguished, the semantics of their components and combinability peculiarities; determines the status of these constructions in the paradigm of the category of measure in relation to the other language means of the given conceptual category, with which the constructions in question form the corresponding functional-semantic field. The results of the conducted research reveal how the "human factor" manifests itself in the English-language culture when expressing quantity evaluation ofthe outward things.
Keywords: category of measure, inaccurate and unspecified quantity, group classifier, object measurement classifier, mensural classifier
Introduction
Perhaps a definitive human characteristic is the multiplicity, the diversity and heterogeneity of forms
Nina Zhukova, Department of Foreign Languages, National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University.
Ludmila Petrochenko, Department of English Language, Tomsk State Pedagogical University.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nina Zhukova,
Department of Foreign Languages, National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University, 30 Lenin Avenue, Tomsk, Russia, 634050.
E-mail: [email protected]
which are used to mediate human relations with the world. Forms are humanly invented, and a plurality of languages, perspectives, conceptual and mechanical schemes serve to constitute a plurality of worlds of human invention. No form or set of forms possesses a privileged logical, ontological or epistemological status over any other, and use of particular forms is more of a matter of contingency, of tradition, of rhetoric, of strategy, of power and of practical implication. A particular set or fund of forms, linked over time, might be described as a 'culture', and to belong to a culture is to share knowledge of the normal use and proper practice of a fund of forms (Rapport & Overing, 2000, p. 464).
Ethnic language is acknowledged as the base code and the semiotic system foundation of any culture. Semantic space of culture and human consciousness
is defined by the limits of expressive possibilities of its sign systems based on the ethnic language (Pili-penko & Yakovenko, 1998; Gudkov, 2003; Ryabova, 2014). Identification and study of these possibilities of the sign systems are conducted both on the basis of different languages and on the material of one ethnic language. One example of the existence of different expressive possibilities in one language is the special nature of verbalization of the category of measure in English.
Theoretical Background
Measure is a category that is not less important than the most general categories of thought, such as space, time, quality, quantity, motion, existence, etc. In the philosophical sense measure expresses the dialectical unity of quality and quantity of an object (Audi, 1999; Blackburn, 2003). The understanding of the measure was gradually formed in the process of the cognitive development of mankind, when people began to realize that the world consists of the objects which can be divided into smaller components, that discreteness is their natural characteristic (Kleiner & Kleiner, 1984; Bondarko, 1996).
Multiplicity and heterogeneity of the objects of the real and the mental worlds also intend a large number of possible ways of their division and consequently measurement. Units of measurement play an important role in quantification, since they are the only guarantee of the accuracy, required in the modern thinking (Bondarko, 1996). Measures vary widely: scientific, accurate measurement; quite accurate measurement, but not adopted in science (national measures, obsolete measures, etc.); evaluative (inaccurate and / or unspecified) measurement, etc. (Nagornaya, 2005; Gupta, 2010; Petrochenko, 2014).
Names of the accurate measurement in English correspond to the international metric system. Cf. quantitative characteristics of space with the bodies positioned in it: measures of length (height, width) (millimetre, centimetre, metre, kilometre, etc.), measures of area (square millimetre / centimetre / metre / kilometre, etc.), measures of capacity for granular materials, liquid and other bodies (substances) (cubic millimetre / centimetre / metre, millilitre, litre, etc.), body weight measures (milligram(me), gram(me), kilogram(me), tonne or metric ton, etc.) (Gupta, 2010; Hosch, 2011).
In addition to the international system, English-speaking countries widely use traditional system of measures developed in the United Kingdom: measures of length (height, width) (inch, foot, yard, rod, chain, furlong, mile, league, etc.), measures of area (square inch / foot / yard / rod / mile, rood, acre, hide, etc.), measures of capacity for granular materials, liq-
uid and other bodies (substances) (cubic inch / foot / yard I, barrel, pint, quart, gallon, etc. ), body weight measures (grain, ounce, pound, stone, etc.) (ibid.).
It is important to accurately measure the quantity in the scientific knowledge. That is achieved by using the instruments, scales and some certain units of measurement. The study of the means expressing quantity in everyday terms invariably leads researchers to the words and language constructions that represent only approximate amounts of substances. Inaccurate estimation of the quantity is applicable to both concrete objects and substances and to the phenomena of the mental spheres expressed by abstract nouns (see Petrochenko, 2014; Zhukova, 2014; Zhukova, 2015).
In many ethnic languages, including English, as a result of a long development, under the influence of various socio-cultural factors along with the expression of accurate digital data developed their evaluative counterparts, because in an ordinary consciousness quantity is evaluated and not measured (Ryabtseva, 2005).
As the analysis of modern linguistic literature shows the investigation of the means representing the inaccurate (evaluative) measures in English did not have any systemic character. Evaluative measurements expressed by certain constructions were mentioned in some scientific works under the name of pseudo-partitives, without concretization and a more sophisticated treatment of examples (Selkirk 1977; Beckwith 2007; Keizer 2007), but in the bulk of other constructions and different syntactic structures the specific features distinguishing them from other linguistic units become less explicit, especially without a sufficient support by the examples of their usage in everyday speech. Examples are not only ways of talking about something, but they are also ways of thinking about it (McEnery, & Hardie, 2012).
In connection with this, the authors of the article present in it the results of the detailed analysis and systematization of various constructions denoting evaluative (inaccurate and / or unspecified) measures in Modern English.
Research
This studypursues the following goals:
- to reveal the constructions of Modern English used by the English-speaking people in everyday life for prompt dividing into parts and evaluating objects of various kinds;
- to carry out an analysis and systematization of the given constructions;
- to define their status in the system of Modern English.
The investigation is concerned with the constructions representing inaccurate and/or unspecified quantities (N1 of N2; N-sized; N1+-ful; N1+load of N2) in the British and American variants of Modern English. In connection with this, the materials for the study were taken from the British National Corpus, English dictionaries and texts of modern American mass literature. The choice results from the authors' attempt to show that the constructions under study expressing inaccurate and unspecified quantities are often used both by the British and the Americans, and they belong to specific ethnocultural traits of common knowledge.
Using the data of the British electronically available corpus opens up considerable possibilities for collecting examples with linguistic units and constructions representing inaccurate and unspecified quantities while the study of American mass literature texts with their informal language provides a way of estimating the scope of occurrence of this linguistic phenomenon in everyday speech practice.
On the whole, the eleven literature works analyzed by the solid sampling method (about 3000 pages) have given a large amount of American usage examples which structurally and semantically coincide with the British ones.
The constructions in question revealed in the texts as well as the examples found in the British National Corpus were combined into three groups. The classification was carried out on the basis of structure analysis of each kind of constructions, the semantics of its components and the specific features of its combin-ability. For this purpose the contextual method of analysis and the semantic interpretation method were used. Both methods require the interpretation of linguistic element based on its context, i.e. a semantically complete passage of written speech sufficient to establish the meaning of a given word or phrase (Babich, 2010).
Combination of the revealed constructions into corresponding classes was conducted on the basis of their functions as classifiers, namely, group classifiers, object measurement classifiers and mensural classifiers. For the identification of their functions along with the above-mentioned methods of contextual analysis and semantic interpretation the descriptive method and the functional analysis were used.
The functional analysis consists in distinguishing and systematizing the main and secondary functions of linguistic units representing one and the same concept, e.g. the concept of measurement. Using the functions as the base, linguists divide the revealed units into those belonging to the core of the system and those constituting its periphery, thus forming the functional-semantic field (Bondarko, 1996; Rodiono-va, 2005).
The major focus of the investigation is the analysis
of the following classifiers:
a) The group classifiers represented by the partitive construction N1 of N2 (a herd of cattle, a pack of wolves, a flock of birds, etc.). These classifiers are usually used for dividing living beings into groups with the help of collective nouns which semantically correlate with the word 'group' (Rijkhoff, 2002; Beckwith, 2007; Payne, 2011).
b) The object measurement classifiers represented by the constructions N1 of N2, N-sized, N1+-ful, N*+load of N2. In the given cases the estimation of mass, volume, size, number, etc. of different substances and objects is done with help of improvised means ("materials at hand"): hands, palm, cups, spoons, forks, buckets, cars, buses, trucks, etc. These nouns are called container measures (Beckwith, 2007; Keizer, 2007).
c) The mensural classifiers expressed by the construction N1 of N2 (Beckwith, 2007). In this case the construction represents a part of the whole, without "materials at hand". To express the size of such parts English has a large number of words: bit, chunk, dab, dash, dollop, drop, grain, hunk, jot, lick, mite, modicum, morsel, nugget, ounce, particle, pat, piece, rasher, scrap, sliver, smear, snippet, speck, touch, trace, whiff, etc. (a bit of land, paper; information, interest, etc.; a piece of bread, land, paper; advice, information, etc.). For these classifiers the common, generic terms of inaccurate measure are the words 'bit' and 'piece'.
Results and Discussion
The category of measure has a complex paradigm which manifests itself in the functional-semantic field. The core of the field in English is represented by the international and traditional terms of measure while the periphery unites a great number of various constructions, phrases, syntactic structures of evaluative (inaccurate and / or unspecified) measurement which form several zones of different status.
The linguistic expression of evaluative (inaccurate and / or unspecified) measurement is located on the periphery of scientific and traditional metric systems, but it has greater importance in the operational partitioning and measuring of different kinds of objects in the everyday life of people.
As the first step of investigation we should mention the spatial measurement provided with the help of the objects positioned in space (stones, houses, streets, towns, galaxies). In our opinion, this measurement refers to the far peripheral zone of the functional-semantic field. E.g.:
- short distances - stone's throw; house(s) away;
store(s) away, shop(s) away:
(1) The hotel is a stone's throw from the beautiful sandy beach of Scheveningen (BYU-BNC: EBN 44)
(2) The tabby a couple of houses away on the other side is a cheeky sod (BYU-BNC: HJC 1).
(3) "I'm three stores away from a market," Sunny pointed out (Donally, 2013, p. 203).
(4) ... yes, unmistakably it was the same road, and he was three shops away from the toyshop (Crispin, 2007, p. 22).
- long distances - street(s) away:
(5) ... a few seconds later I heard and saw the explosion, two or three streets away (BNC: B3F 619).
(6) There's a pub about four streets away from us where I used to go with my dad (BNC: HR9 2789).
- vast distances - town(s) away; galaxy / galaxies away:
(7) Knox's practice was located two towns away in a burg named Little Kentucky (Adams, 2012, p. 83).
(8) They were three towns away from the Mason (BNC: HTN174).
(9) It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea (Faber, 2014, p. 386).
The investigation carried out on the basis of the information obtained from the British National Corpus, English dictionaries and texts of modern American mass literature gives us an idea what linguistic units can be included in the periphery zones. The below-mentioned classifiers belong to the close periphery zone of the functional-semantic field.
In English the evaluative (inaccurate and / or unspecified) measurement has several variants, the most significant of which can be represented by the following classification:
• constructionofgroupclassifiers;
• constructions of object measurement classifiers;
• construction of mensural classifiers.
Construction of group classifiers N1 of N2 (partitive
construction consisting of two nouns linked together with the preposition of) is used in partitioning of the objects of the various kinds using the words (N1) belonging to the class of collective nouns (nouns of assemblage) (Rijkhoff, 2002, p. 48-49; Beckwith, 2007, p. 67; Payne, 2011, p. 120).
In singular form nouns of this class denote groups of people, living creatures, things, etc. Semantically they correlate with the neutral word 'group'. Here are some examples:
Cattle, deer, antelope, horse and other animals in group calculations are represented by the word herd -a herd of cows (cattle), a herd of horses, a herd of deer, a
herd of zebras, a herd of whales, etc.:
(10) The last time she'd met a herd of cows she'd turned and ridden away (BYU-BNC: BOB 7).
(11) I'm planning to have a herd of deer in the parkland around the house (BYU-BNC: J54 30).
(12) When a herd of whales is sighted, two-way radios carry the news from village to village (BYU-BNC: ABC 1).
For cattle and horses also exists the word drove (animals gathered for cattle drive/transportation) - a drove of cows (cattle); a drove of horses:
(13) They came across at the Kershopefoot crossing of Liddel Water, driving an even larger drove of cattle from Gilsland (BYU-BNC: CD8 2).
Dogs, wolves group in packs - a pack of dogs or wolves:
(14) But the cells in a pack of wolves do not have the same genes (BYU-BNC: ARR 51).
(15) The dawn light showed a crowd of men and women with a pack of dogs running beside them (BYU-BNC: AON 2).
Small livestock, such as sheep and goats, are evaluated with the word flock - a flock ofsheep:
(16) They stared blankly at her, like a flock ofsheep startled by a tractor (BYU-BNC: FRO 22).
Birds are also evaluated with the word flock - a flock of birds; aflock ofseagulls; aflock ofgeese:
(17) A flock ofbirds passed overhead, sensing the barrenness of the space beneath them (BYU-BNC: ALL77).
(18) A girl was coming in their direction, driving a flock ofgeese in front of her (BYU-BNC: FUB 1).
Groups of insects are usually separated from the class of insects by the word swarm - a swarm offlies; a swarm of bees:
(19) The cow was bloated and a swarm offlies were already buzzing round it (BYU-BNC: AN7 1).
(20) ... they are asfurious about it as a swarm of bees (BYU-BNC: AON 2).
Groups of fish, dolphins, whales can be separated from their class by the word school: a school offish; a school of sharks, a school of whales, etc.
(21) Once dolphins locate a school offish, they spread out... (BYU-BNC: ABC 59).
(22) It is only the second time this century that a school of sperm whales has been seen in the waters around Orkney (BYU-BNC: K5M 20).
(23) ... and right above a school of dolphins swim-mingbelow me in the crystal-clearPacific waters of Doubtless Bay (BYU-BNC: CAU 24).
In English, along with the commonly used words, also exist dozens of special words (N1), the usage of which is even more regulated by the specific characteristics of a referent, represented by the noun N2 in the construction N1 of N2:
- shoal (a shoal offish, a shoal ofherrings, a shoal
ofminnows, etc.):
(24) A shoal of several hundred golden-grey fish followed me (BYU-BNC: G13 8).
(25) The blue-overalled workers reacted to his passage like a shoal of minnows in the presence of a bigfish (BYU-BNC: ANY 3).
- gaggle (a gaggle of geese), skein (a skein of geese, a skein of crows):
(26) A dog - or better still - a gaggle of geese not only act as a deterrent to a prowler... (BYU-BNC: ARA 33).
(27) Piper saw more choughs and, later, a skein of crows (BYU-BNC:FP7 7).
- pod (a pod of whales, a pod of dolphins):
(28) On Sunday there were reliable reports of a pod of live whales off Skegness (BYU-BNC: B73 2).
(29) Next day we were visited by a pod of dolphins which behaved as if they had escaped from a circus (BYU-BNC: FEP 3).
- pride (a pride of lions):
(30) A herd of deer, a pride of lions or a pack of wolves has a certain rudimentary coherence and unity of purpose (BYU-BNC: ARR 51).
Constructions of object measurement classifiers are presented in English by two most frequent types: partitive construction N1 of N2 and compound adjectives N(-)sized.
In both cases the estimation of area, capacity and mass is done with the help of "materials at hand" (Bondarko, 1996, p. 193; Ryabtseva, 2005, p. 127; Payne, 2011, p. 116): a cup of tea, a glass of milk, a pail of cold water, a bottle of wine; a carload of tourists; a fist-sized lump of ice, a palm-sized pie, a postage-stamp-sized front garden, etc. The nouns bottle, bowl, cup, can, carton, pail, spoon, tin, truckload and others are called container measures (Beckwith, 2007, p. 29; Keizer, 2007, p. 136). The usage of one or another container measure N1 depends on the characteristics of a referent, marked as noun N2. Many nouns of this class in this construction are supplemented by the suffix -ful (N1+-ful): a bucketful of cold water, a cupful of water to drink, a glassful of juice, a handful of coins, a jugful of water, a mouthful of sausage, a forkful of sausage, a spoonful of soup, a thimbleful of food, a shovelful of snow, etc.:
(31) Clean rocks, plastic plants, etc. in a bucket of warm water with a cupful of household bleach (BNC:CLT563).
(32)... he dropped it into a bucketful of warm water (BNC:AT1 201).
(33) She took out a pitcher of orange juice and poured herself a glassful (O'Callaghan, 1997, p. 59).
(34) She went directly to the cupboard and got herself a handful of crackers (Daniels, 2011, p. 214).
(35) A forkful of bacon and fried bread remained
poised between plate and mouth (BNC: HHA 132).
(36) Helena Martinson took a cup and saucer, added half a spoonful of sugar, and lightened the coffee with a quick dollop of milk from the creamer (Donally,2013,p.96).
(37) Serve hot, warm or cold with a spoonful of olive oil and fresh lemon juice (BYU-BNC: H06 109)
(38) She gave me a penurious slice of cobbler along with a dollop of ice cream ...It was probably a good thing. By the time I had the last bite, I wasn't sure I'd be able to hold a thimbleful more of food (Beck, 2010, p. 111).
In this case the noun semantics of measure in position N1 is not unspecified. The nouns are referred to the means expressing inaccurate quantity. People who have the experience of seeing the world around them, of interacting with it and who share the common cultural notions of objects and phenomena of this world are able to approximately evaluate how much fluid or any other substance a spoon, cup, jug, bucket might contain, how many coins can fit in a palm of a hand, etc.
However, under the influence of the characteristics of some referents, represented by N2, the measurement semantics in some examples becomes unspecified, e.g.
- handful, spoonful, etc. - small quantity/number:
(39) Mick was one of only a handful of people she'd met in Ireland (Connolly, 2013, p. 166).
(40) Charlotte can think of just a handful of resorts that offer the best skiing for all standards (BNC: G2W 954).
- houseful, mouthful, etc. - large quantity/num-
ber:
(41) ... being raised by a strong mother in a houseful of four sisters had apparently humbled him (Cates, 2013, p. 36).
(42) And yes, I am Mrs. Penelope Blakely-fones, but it's such a mouthful I think it would be simpler if you called me Penny (Sanders, 1998, p. 301).
In the other ones the measurement semantics becomes figurative, i.e. the given construction might be used as a stylistic device: a spoonful of mischief, a bucketful of pernicious politics, a bucketful of bad acting, a mouthful of decay. E.g.:
(43) Last week Lord Lawson, a former chancellor, added his spoonful of mischief by blaming Mr Major personally for last September's Black Wednesday fiasco (BNC: CR8 1638).
(44) Watch those in their full two-hour glory and you get a bucketful of pernicious politics and bad acting (BNC: ACN 525).
(45) My objection to the royal symbol is that it is dead; it is the gold filling in a mouthful of decay (BNC: ADB 56).
Such variant of the partitive construction as Nx+-load of N2 also belongs to the container measures: an armload of N2, a carload of N2, a cartload of N2, a truck-load of N2, etc. E.g.:
(46) Susannah thrust an armload of empty bags at him (Bolin, 2011, p. 220).
(47)... a carload of American tourists pulled up in the street beside him (BNC: K2W 488).
(48) A bus rolled into town ...No classes were scheduled, but I didn't mind new busloads of tourists discovering Threadville (Bolin, 2011, p. 177).
(49)... a collision between an engine named 'Samson' and a cartload of butter and eggs led to the use on this line of the first train whistle (BNC: BOA 1047).
(50) He drove truckloads of salt all over New England (Donally, 2013, p. 19).
In some cases the meaning of the construction N1+load of N2 can be figurative. E.g.
(51) If I could, I would have been able to save myself a bucketload of pain over the years, most especially from my ex-husband (Beck, 2010, p. 10).
In an adjective N(-)sized the component N acts as a mensural sample, with which the size of the other objects is compared, e.g.:
- pies the size of a palm:
(52) He greedily took the box of palm-sized pies (Beck, 2010, p. 73);
- dahliasthesizeofadinner-plate:
(53) Dinner-plate-sized dahlias were clustered in a huge vase (McRae, 2010, p. 39);
- an encyclopaedia book the size of a coffee table:
(54) It is one of those coffee table sized encyclopaedia books that contains almost anything and everything about aviation! (BYU-BNC: JIB 99);
- a rock the size of a football:
(55) Rodomonte picked up a football sized rock that lay close to the entrance (BYU-BNC: FRO 221);
- bar codes the size of an elephant:
(56)... bar codes on warehouse containers are usually 'Jumbo' sized. This is so that they are easy to find on the large boxes (BYU-BNC: C91 281);
- keys the size of a shirt button:
(57) There's no tactile feedback from the square, shirt-button sized keys (BYU-BNC: A8E 115);
- front gardens the size of a postage-stamp:
(58) Baywindows on the ground andfirstfioors, postage-stamp sized front gardens behind railings, nothing remotely green in-sight (BYU-BNC:CN3 216);
- pictures the size of a passport:
(59)... it can be hidden in the palm of the hand: pills, passport sized pictures of the family (BYU-BNC: A03 247).
Constructions of mensural classifiers include the words piece, slice, chunk, hunk, slab, wedge, dollop, etc.
that might be combined with many nouns (but not all of them) representing substances of hard, soft and liquid consistency. They are not container measures, since they are presenting a part of the whole object without "materials at hand" (Beckwith, 2007, p. 27). Sometimes they are called 'part nouns' (Keizer, 2007, p. 136). To express the size of such parts English has a large number of words, semantically correlating with the neutral words 'bit' and 'piece'. In everyday life big-sized parts of a hard or soft object are usually expressed with the help of the words hunk, chunk, slab (Soanes, Waite, & Hawker, 2001; Kipfer, 2010):
- hunk (hunch): a hunk of bread, a hunk of meat;
- chunk: a chunk of ice, a chunk of mortar;
- slab: a slab of rock, a slab of steel, a slab of pizza, a slab of meat.
If necessary, it is also possible to increase the size of the part of the whole object with the same words using the corresponding attributes: a great chunk of cotton wool, a generous chunk of cheese, a huge chunk of land, a big hunk of pork, a huge hunk of bread, a huge slab ofpizza, an enormous slab ofcake, etc.
Measuring characteristics of the word piece expressing the common, generic term of inaccurate measure can only be identified on the basis of context.
In the following example, we are dealing with a cake cut in generous hunks. The hostess offers her guest a piece of pie and also takes a sizable chunk. Thus, piece in this context corresponds to hunk and chunk:
(60) Jaymie fixed her coffee, and sat back, eyeing the generous hunks of carrot cake on a platter. "Take a piece," Dani said, grabbing a sizable chunk and a napkin for herself (Hamilton, 2013, p. 185).
In a second example, there is good reason to believe that semantically piece is equal to slice - a thin fiat piece of food (Summers, 1992):
(61) She smeared a dollop of pungent garlic butter on a piece of Italian bread and reached for another slice (McRae, 2010, p. 15).
In the next case, a woman decided to share with a dog a piece of crust. The description of how the dog eats the received treat includes the word morsel. Therefore, piece in this context corresponds to morsel - a very small piece of food (Summers, 1992):
(63) Taking pity on him (the dog), Anne broke off a piece of crust with a smear of cheese and laid it on the floor by her chair. He made a sudden dash to grab the morsel, then quickly retreated to chew it a couple of times and gulp it down (O'Cal-laghan, 1997, p. 179).
Morsel as a mensural classifier is one of the components in a long range of classifiers expressing small and very small size or measure of not only hard, soft, liquid, gaseous substances but also abstract notions. These classifiers are also widely used in the partitive
construction N1 of N2: bit, dab, dash, dollop, drop, grain, jot, lick, mite, modicum, nugget, ounce, particle, pat, rasher, scrap, smear, snippet, speck, touch, trace, whiff, etc. For these classifiers a common, generic term of unspecified measure is expressed by the word 'bit' (Soanes, Waite & Hawker, 2001; Brems, 2007; Kipfer, 2010). E.g.:
- a bit of land, paper, baked fish; a bit of independence, interest, luck;
- a chunk of beef, bread, cheese, flesh, ice, land, gold, lead, continent; a chunk of discourse, data, information, money, time, life, etc.;
- a dash of eau-de-cologne, spice, milk, lemon juice; a dash of courage, realism, madness;
- a dollop of cream, jam, honey, ketchup, porridge, etc; a dollop o/luck, confidence, gratitude, moral authority;
- a drop o/blood, rain, water, wine, alcohol, fresh air; a drop of cruelty, intuition, hatred;
- a grain of" dust, rice, salt, sand; a grain of truth, malice, hatred, sense;
- a mite of good wine; a mite of deception, discipline, persuasion, sentimentality;
- a modicum of accuracy, attention, encouragement, humour, luck, pocket money, success, truth;
- a morsel of bread, cheese, food, meat; a morsel of good news, support, professional advice, scandal;
- a piece of paper, land, glass, equipment; a piece of advice, information, folk wisdom;
- a scrap of paper, cloth, parchment, land; a scrap of courage, positive criticism, power and majesty;
- a shred of flesh, tobacco, substance; a shred of doubt, embarrassment, evidence, proof, hope;
- a snippet of hair; a snippet of conversation, information, knowledge, English history;
- a whiff of perfume, eau de cologne, disinfectant, Seabreeze, staleness; a whiff of defeat, glasnost, interest, adventure, the past, etc.
The peculiarity of the mensural classifiers is that the most of them by means of the partitive construction can be combined with the countable and uncountable nouns representing the objects of different classes and characteristics: discrete objects; hard, liquid, gaseous substances; soft consistency substances; phenomena of not only material but also mental and socio-cultural worlds.
Conclusion
The category of measure in the English linguistic culture has a complex paradigm. The means of its verbalization are characterized by hierarchical arrangement, which manifests itself in the existing of the
functional-semantic field. The structure of this field consists of the following components: a core, zones of close and far periphery. According to the conducted research, the core includes the words of international scientific measures and accurate traditional measures accepted in the English-speaking countries. The spatial measurement and the evaluative (inaccurate and/ or unspecified) measurement refer to the peripheral zones of the functional-semantic field, the full specification of which requires further analysis.
Summing up the results of the given research and at the same time specifying the future study prospects of the "human factor" manifestation problem in the language when quantifying the world, we should say that the description of the means representing the functional-semantic field of the category of measure in English must include:
• the definition of all the zones and segments the field consists of;
• the study of the origin of its language units and the appearance of neologisms;
• the study of the peculiarities of classifiers meaning the extension and nature of their metaphorization.
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