2.193 Talking about quantities and amounts

This section deals with ways of referring to quantities and amounts of things. You often refer to quantities by using a number, but sometimes in everyday situations you can do this by using a word or a phrase such as 'several' and 'a bottle' and link it with 'of' to the following noun group in a partitive structure. When words like 'several' are used like this, they are called quantifiers. Quantifiers are explained in paragraphs 2.194 to 2.210. When phrases such as 'a bottle' are used like this, they are called partitives. Partitives are explained in paragraphs 2.211 to 2.224.

When you want to be very precise about the quantity or amount of something, you can numbers (see paragraphs 2.225 to 2.256) or fractions (see paragraphs 2.257 to 2.266).

Numbers, fractions, and quantifiers are also used in expressions of measurement to indicate the size, weight, length, and so on, of something. Ways of talking about measurements are explained in paragraphs 2.267 to 2.274. Approximate measurements are explained in paragraphs 2.281 to 2.288. Numbers are also used to say how old someone or something is. This is explained in paragraphs 2.275 to 2.280.