alt.languages.englishPrev. Next
Re: much as a determiner or an adverb? Chariot netconnect - htt ..
Rotes Sapiens (rs@redplanet.mars.org.cy) 2005/06/25 00:42

Path: news.nzbot.com!not-for-mail
From: Rotes Sapiens <rs@redplanet.mars.org.cy>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: much as a determiner or an adverb?
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 16:12:50 +0930
Message-ID: <0igpb1dv7g6mt58lreoga2tapifd6rsaor@4ax.com>
References: <64hoa19deuedo1ak34qq7s96onaeiq07h3@4ax.com>
X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.93/32.576 English (American)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Organization: Chariot netconnect - http://www.chariot.net.au
X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 127.0.0.1
Lines: 36
NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.87.95.150
X-Trace: 1119681957 lon-reader.news.telstra.net 93533 203.87.95.150
Xref: news.nzbot.com alt.languages.english:804

On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 14:25:08 GMT, Pine <pine@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

>He was fundamentally too much a man of strong convictions to be
>correctly described as open-minded.

>He was too much a man, and too much an unusual type of man.

>But he was too much a man of appetites, too painterly, not to
>recognize the value,both sensual and moral, of a gesture.

>In the above three sentences, does 'much' function as a determiner or
>an adverb?

In my Natural Language Parser programs I treat these words as
determiners:

a/an, the, this, that, these, those

They 'determine' number and/or position, and specificity/generality.


In the first 'much' sentence, to my mind the much is an adverb.  An
adj can't be substituted, e.g. dark.  The thing to remember about
adverbs is that they can usually be placed in a number of positions in
a sentence:

He ran down the road slowly.

'slowly' could be inserted in several places, and the same can be said
of 'too much'.



Sig:
I do not fear computers.  I fear the lack of them.
  -- Isaac Asimov

Follow-ups:123456789
Next Prev. Article List         Favorite