Sentence:  His denials of extensive reading notwithstanding , it is no doubt safe to assume that he has spent time schooling himself in Southern history and that he has gained <WSD>some</WSD> acquaintance with the chief literary authors who have lived in the South or have written about the South . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  quantifier; used with either mass nouns or plural count nouns to indicate an unspecified number or quantity