[quote=“Cerberus™”]
The confusion comes from “many” and “few”, which appear to be (from their form) contrary to the rule, even though they, too, are in fact adverbs.
[quote]
Excellent explanation! I hope all readers benefit from what you explained.
Yes, the confusion comes from " many" , according to my limited knowledge, I know it only can be “adjective”. what I was wondering before I posted this post is: Can this adjective “many” be used as an adverb ( or you say " to be used adverbially" etc.) ? So thank you for confirming that it can be used as an adverb, this part of the confusion has been cleared.
Cerberus explained and confirmed that “many” can be used adverbially, and Cerberus even said “are in fact adverbs” in the above post.
Since “many” as an adjective can be used as an adverb as well, ( or used adverbially), then “Many” in " many more books" is an adjective used adverbially to modify “more”, to define how much “more”.
So far, I have got more understanding on the topic, but the confusion hasn’t been cleared up completely. The confusion remained is: why we should change between “many” and " much" according to the noun mentioned in the context? while we have considered “many” as an adverb. But it looks like we still need to observe the noun mentioned in the context whether it is countable or uncountable , singular or plural , and then select “many” or “much” to match the nature of the noun, even though we have agreed that “many” can be used adverbially.
But Adverbs have nothing to do with the noun, they are used to modify the adjectives. Such as in “many more people”,
“more” as adjective to modify the noun “people”
“many” used adverbially to modify the adjective “more” to define how much more.
In practice, we still need to observe what the noun is:
many more people ( people: uncountable, collective noun)
many more books ( books: countable, plural)
much more time/money ( time/money: uncountable, used with singular verb)
In grammar,if we say " much more people", it is grammatically correct then, even though we normally say “many more people” instead of “much more people”. From the pure grammatical aspect, " much more people" is acceptable then? Am I correct on this understanding?
Furthermore, “much more books” ( in the case of countable noun)etc, it is grammatically correct then? considering “much” here as an adverb is used to modify “more”, to define how much “more”.