English Grammar Drills

12 Noun Phrases
4. There are coyotes and wolfs in the area, but their dogs help keep them away.
5. The coyotes in particular are like thiefs, always waiting and watching.
6. If a coyote gets just a few feets inside the fence, the horses will drive it away.
7. Once they lost some sheeps when some childs left a gate open.
8. Their valley is full of deers, which also support a large population of coyotes.
9. The river in the valley is full of salmons in the fall.
10. Farming is terribly hard work, but we all choose the lifes we want to live.
Noncount nouns
The types of noncount nouns that you are most likely to encounter fall into the semantic categories
listed below:
Abstractions:
Food:
Liquids and gases:
Materials:
Natural phenomena:
Weather words:
beauty, charity, faith, hope, knowledge, justice, luck, reliability
butter, cheese, chicken, pepper, rice, salt
beer, blood, coffee, gasoline, water, air, oxygen
cement, glass, gold, paper, plastic, silk, wood, wool
electricity, gravity, matter, space
fog, pollution, rain, snow, wind
With certain exceptions that are discussed below, these noncount nouns are ungrammatical
if they are used in the plural. For example:
X Please get some more butters.
X We need to stop and get gasolines.
X The cements on the garage floors are cracking.
X The electricities have been turned off in all the apartments.
X Everyone has noticed the worsening pollutions around major cities.
Many noncount nouns can be used as count nouns with a predictable shift in meaning to something
like “different kinds of.” Here are some examples:
gasoline (noncount):
gasoline (count):
The price of gasoline is outrageous. (liquid)
The station sells three gasolines. (different kinds or grades of
gasoline)