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There are many questions on this site (EL&U) about countable and uncountable nouns, including one about uncountable nouns that can sometimes be used as if they were countable nouns. This question is about its opposite.

There are nouns such as excess for which the plural form excesses is also in use, albeit with a significantly narrowed meaning in this particular case. That excess is a countable noun is further supported by the phrase "there is an excess of ..." sounding more natural than "there is excess of ...".

Now, although excess is a countable noun, it isn't actually countable beyond having one of them - you can have an excess of wheat, but you can't have two excesses of wheat, for example. Contrast this with a truly uncountable noun such as water, where the construct two waters could be read as an elided form of two bodies of water or two glasses of water.

Other related words such as abundance and, less universally, shortage also have this property, as does extent, to an extent.

Is there a more compact term than the phrase itself for seemingly countable nouns that are normally used as if they are uncountable nouns?

Sample sentence: "[Semi-countable] nouns are restricted to the singular."

Update The construct "a/an [xyz] of ..." is often used with collective nouns, e.g. a disguising of tailors. A strange property of collective nouns is that the chosen word (like disguising in my example, or better still, like the amble in an amble of walkers") need only to be suggestive of some property of the group described, and doesn't even need to be nouns at all when not used as a collective noun. I wouldn't normally consider the phrase "an abundance of wheat" to be a collective noun, but perhaps that is at least a step towards an appropriate label.

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    Sure you can have excesses, and abundances and shortages and extents, too. – StoneyB on hiatus Dec 08 '15 at 00:04
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    An excess of wheat in Russia and an excess in the US paralleled a shortage of wheat in Iceland and a shortage in the Antartic. The two excesses were matched with the two shortages and everybody got doughnuts. – JEL Dec 08 '15 at 00:07
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    @JEL In fact, so many doughnuts were supplied that many people overindulged and suffered severe stomachaches as a result of their excesses. – StoneyB on hiatus Dec 08 '15 at 00:28
  • '... uncountable nouns that can sometimes be counted.' is inaccurate. It is usages, not the words, that are count or noncount (or sometimes apparently somewhere in between). This is like saying 'stop' is an intransitive verb. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '15 at 01:06
  • @EdwinAshworth Point taken. However, since both countable noun and uncountable noun are established terms, is your objection focused on the phrase "sometimes be counted"? – Lawrence Dec 08 '15 at 01:18
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    There needs to be a conceptual differentiation between the signifier and the signified. 'Confetti' (plural in form but given singular agreement) and 'rice' (singular in form and given singular agreement) are usually used in the mass senses but have etically discrete referents (when boxed). – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '15 at 01:21
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    @ But that article also has 'nouns that are chiefly uncountable': I'd disregard it as inaccurate (as proved by its confused use of terminology). / The whole issue is not clear. What do we call usages such as 'A dappled sunlight softly washed the edges of the gravestone'? (Singular article but non-availability of '2/3... dappled sunlights ...). And how countable (in the maths sense) are say neutrinos? One can speak of count and non-count (and I'd add problem) usages. A broadening to a count usage not formerly available is called 'countification'; the reverse broadening 'massification'. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '15 at 01:31
  • @EdwinAshworth Even granting that view, the core of the question is still a request for the name given to those nouns when used outside their natural (or typical?) category, as distinct from the names of their broadening or restricting processes. – Lawrence Dec 08 '15 at 01:38
  • @JEL Nice one :) . Your example invalidates my assertion that these strange countable nouns can never be used for counts of more than 1, but it doesn't completely dismiss the notion that such usage exists. I'm starting to think that the term I'm after is closely related to collective nouns. – Lawrence Dec 08 '15 at 01:54
  • (1) Car/cars: etically countable; singular & plural forms; singular and plural verbs correspondingly used. // (2) Furniture: etically countable; singular form only (except for styles: the furnitures of 17th- & 18th-century France); singular agreement. // (3) Cattle: etically countable; singular form only; plural agreement. // (4) Confetti: etically countable; plural in form (from confetto); singular agreement. // (5) Headquarters: etically countable; plural in form; singular or plural agreement. // (6) Swimming: etically not countable; singular in form; singular agreement.... – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '15 at 01:55
  • But only (1) and (5) are regarded as count usages. And even 'car' may be massified: 'The Veyron? It's just too much car for most drivers.' – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '15 at 02:01
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Lawrence Dec 08 '15 at 02:02
  • Noun usages where the indefinite article may be incorporated, but not numerals, have been covered at a blinding light – blinding sunlight – a blinding sunlight. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '15 at 02:19
  • @EdwinAshworth The "... automatically move this discussion to chat" sign popped up again, so I've continued the discussion there. – Lawrence Dec 08 '15 at 02:34
  • You might call them pseudo-uncountable nouns as well: https://books.google.ca/books?id=-J6xV9z3kfAC&pg=PA24&dq=%22pseudo-uncountable%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiY_tOpo8vJAhUL1h4KHZdeAWQQ6AEIKjAD#v=onepage&q=%22pseudo-uncountable%22&f=false – ermanen Dec 08 '15 at 03:08
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    Any 'mass' noun can be cast to a 'count' noun by making it plural. – AmI Dec 14 '15 at 20:04
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    And any count noun can be massified just by using it in a construction that demands one: After the explosion at the convention, there was Republican all over the walls. – John Lawler Mar 13 '23 at 19:44

1 Answers1

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Thanks (or should I say, "A big thank you" :) ) to all who commented on the question, especially @EdwinAshworth.

I have gathered 3 relevant points from the discussion and links and simply collate these as an answer for ease of future reference.

First, terminology. As EdwinAshworth points out, this is an example of countification, where excess functions as a countable noun even though it is not normally so. Excess is said to be countified. (The opposite is massification.) Regardless of dictionary classification, words are considered to be countable or uncountable nouns by their usage in context.

Secondly, the phenomenon of countification crops up in the coining of collective nouns, as pointed out in the update to the question.

Finally, countification tends to happen when the counting term (a/an/two, etc) is applied to an elided term. For example, the related question that @EdwinAshworth noted asked about the phrase "a blinding sunlight". That phrase could be read as "a blinding [type of] sunlight" with the words in brackets elided, where the counting term "a" is applied to "type". The example I used, "an excess of wheat", could be read as "an excess amount of wheat" with amount elided. In each case, the elided term is without question a countable noun.

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  • Do you have a question? – Cargill Dec 08 '15 at 03:54
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    @Cargill Yes, it's in the title. After the discussion, I'm satisfied with the above answer, which is basically that uncountable nouns do not really become uncountable nouns - they only appear to be countable due to elision. Should I rewrite the question text? I answered my own question because the discussions took place completely in comments and a chat room, with no answers posted at the time. – Lawrence Dec 08 '15 at 04:41
  • I meant "uncountable nouns do not really become countable nouns ...". – Lawrence Dec 08 '15 at 05:58
  • I don't accept the broad-brush collective noun interpretation. It is hard to recover sensibly appropriate (rather than merely clinically logical) deleted material from 'a great dread overwhelmed them' or 'a gentle light stole over the heavens'; it's an emphatic, poetic, almost personifying device – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '15 at 16:09
  • @EdwinAshworth In both examples "a great dread" and "a gentle light", dread/light is implicitly split into categories - e.g. great/little, gentle/harsh, and it is in that multiple-category sense that there are 'many' dreads/lights. One can imagine a Q&A, "Which type of light? The gentle type of light." Taking out the words type of while retaining its effect is part of the craft of poetry. This is different from what happens with collective nouns which, within a rigidly stylised form, simply admit any word as the collection. – Lawrence Dec 08 '15 at 22:30
  • You're trying to defend a pet theory. A little dread? While countification is well known to often involve the 'a portion of' (three coffees and two teas, please) and the 'a variety of' (different rices show different resistance to ...) notions, I'd agree with the author at Useful English that 'In formal writing and literary works the article a/an may be used with some uncountable abstract nouns to show an unusual or temporary aspect of something. The indefinite article here has similar meaning to: such, certain, special, peculiar.' More semantically weighty than 'a subset of something'. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '15 at 22:53
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    @EdwinAshworth The label isn't the point - any alternative category to "great" would do. I don't disagree with the Useful English quote, but even there, the pattern fits. "Such, certain, special, peculiar" each implicitly divides its complement into categories and highlights one. My theory is that in the context of my question, the indefinite article is associated in a natural way with elided words. You haven't disproved this; pet theory is just ad hominem - it fails as an argument. – Lawrence Dec 08 '15 at 23:28