Semantics and usage of english quantifiers expressing indefinitely large quantity a great deal of / a large amount of

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the study of quantitative semantics and the way it is expressed by English quantifiers with the meaning of indefinitely large quantity. Definitions of the category of quantity in different linguistic works are discussed. The functional-semantic field of quantity includes a number of linguistic means expressing this meaning belonging to different layers of the language. Semantic and syntagmatic properties of English quantifiers a great deal of, a large amount of are thoroughly analyzed in this paper. The study of the semantics of indefinitely large quantity realized by the collected contexts was based on the corpus data obtained from British National Corpus, English dictionaries and modern English fiction. In the course of the research, paradigmatic analysis of the phrase components has been conducted. It has been demonstrated that modern English dictionaries and grammars contain limited information concerning the combinatory properties and functioning of the studied quantifiers. Further syntagmatic research allows us to determine positional and combinatory features of the discussed lexico-phraseological units. The quantifier a great deal of has a wider combinatory potential than a large amount of. In most cases it combines with verbal nouns or gerund expressing quantitative characteristics of process. Besides, a great deal of is more often used in untypical combinations because it develops new contextual shades of meaning. A large amount of is normally used with either abstract nouns with the meaning of mental activity results or with uncountable concrete nouns naming materials and substances.