首先要搞清楚,是修饰可数名词或不可数名词,而不是单数或复数名词。可数名词都有复数形式,而不可数名词没有复数形式。 a large deal of、a plenty of和a good supply of 在多数情况下修饰不可数名词,如:a plenty of water, a geat deal of time,不过它们也可以修饰可数名词,如a plenty of men。 a quantity of在多数情况下修饰可数名词,如a quantity of boxes, 不过也可修饰不可数名词,如a quantity of milk。 quantities of与上述的一样 一、只能修饰可数名词的词语有: many, many a(n), a good / great many, a (great / large) number of, scores of, dozens of等。例如: Scores of people went there in the first few days after its opening. 开张后的头几天,很多人去了那儿。 I have been there dozens of times. 我已去过那儿很多次了。 There’re a number of students reading English in the classroom. 教室里有许多学生在读英语。 Many a student has(=many students have)visited the Great Wall.(谓语动词用单数) 很多学生都游览过长城。 In winter, a good many animals sleep under the snow. 冬天很多动物在雪下冬眠。 注意: many所修饰的复数名词前若有限定词,many 后面要接of, 表示“……中的很多”。 例如: A great many(of the) graduates have found jobs. 毕业生中很多人已经找到了工作。 二、只能修饰不可数名词的词语有: much, a great deal of, a great / large amount of等。例如: Is there much water in the bucket? 桶里有很多水吗? He always has a great amount of work to do. 他总是有很多工作要做。 三、既能修饰可数名词又能修饰不可数名词的词语有: a lot of, lots of, plenty of (以上三个词语后谓语动词的数依of 后的名词的单复数而定),a great / large quantity of (其后谓语用单数),quantities of (其后谓语用复数)。例如: There is still lots of snow in the garden. 花园里还有许多雪。 There is plenty of rain here. 这儿的雨水很多。 A great quantity of flowers was placed in the hall. 大厅里放了很多鲜花。 There are large quantities of food in the cupboard. 橱柜里有许多食物。 在所有这些表示“很多”的词语中many, much 是最常用的词,它们既可以用于肯定句,也可以用于疑问句和否定句。例如: Are there many people in the street? 街上有很多人吗? There isn’t much time left. 剩下的时间不多了。 其它的词语都用于肯定句,日常会话中常用lots of, a lot of 或plenty of; 正式文体中常用 a great many, a (large) number of, a great deal of, scores of 或dozens of 等。但若肯定句中有too, so, as, very或how 等词修饰时,则必须使用 many, much。例如: The number of the people who lost their homes reached as many as 250,000. 无家可归的人数多达250,000人。 There is too much work to do. 要做的工作太多了。