2.214 PRODUCTIVE FEATURE

Many nouns which indicate the shape of an amount of something can also be used as partitives which are used with uncount or plural nouns.

• ...a ball of wool.
• ...columns of smoke.
• ...a ring of excited faces.

Here is a list of partitives indicating the shape of an amount of something:

• ball of, column of, ring of, shaft of, square of, stick of, strip of, thread of, tuft of, wall of

Many nouns which indicate both shape and movement can also be used as partitives.

• It blew a jet of water into the air.
• ...a constant stream of children passing through the door.

Here is a list of partitives indicating both shape and movement:

• dribble of, gush of, gust of, jet of, spurt of, stream of, torrent of

This use of partitives to indicate shape, and shape and movement is a productive feature of English because you can use any noun indicating shape in this way. For example you can talk about 'a triangle of snooker balls'. Productive features are explained in the Introduction.