Much more / Many more

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1
  1. We hope that now many more people will come.
  2. We hope that now much more people will come.

Which sentence is correct in terms of the usage of “many more” and “much more” ?
I think “ many” in the first sentence is used as an adjective to modify people, while “more” is an adjective modifying the word “people” as well, in other words, there are two adjectives modifying “people”, is my understanding correct?

The word “much” in the second sentence, is it an adjective or an adverb?
if it is an adjective, which word is it modifying — “more” or ”people” ?
If it is an adverb, is the second sentence grammatically correct? considering the word “much” as an adverb modifying the word “more” which is an adjective.

This room needs some more air. ( I think the word “some” is an adjective here.)
This room needs a little more air. ( and I think “ a little” is an adjective, too. )
But how about this sentence:
This room needs much more air. ( “much” here, is it an adjective or adverb? considering that “much” can be used as an adjective or an adverb)

Thanks in advance for your help.

2

As a rule, both adverbs and adjectives can only be modified by adverbs. All of the words in your examples, therefore, are and must be adverbs or adverbial constituents, such as “much” and “a little”. However, “many more” is the exception: it ought to have been “much more”, even with countable plurals, according to the rule - but it is not: “many more” is used with countable plurals. English is not famous for the consistency of its grammar.
In addition, “people” count as plural because it is a collective noun; you say “the people have”, not *“the people has”, unless your are talking about “a people”, which is rather a nation or a tribe. See a recent thread on this:
Asking about modifiers

3

Thanks for your explanation and the link you provided, specially, your analysis in that post is very enlightening.

Now, back to my question:
The examples I listed in my post, such as " some"," a little" in “some more air”," a little more air" , in my humble opinion, they are not adverbs. Let’s look at another example for comparision:
a little more air vs a few more books
" a little" and " a few" here, they go along with the nouns they modify, " a little" with uncountable noun, " a few" with countable. " a little" ," a few" are adjectives here.

But the problem is, such as “much” in " much more air", is it an adjective or an adverb?
a little more air ( adjective+adjective+noun)
some more air ( adjective+adjective+noun)
much more air ( ? + adjective+noun)

many more books ( adjective+adjective+noun) ---- ( note: many cannot be an adverb)
much more money ( adjective+adjective+noun or adverb+adjective+noun)

The reason I posted my question here is: I found this website about two years ago, and I have been receiving newsletters from Alan Townend, which are very helpful. I visit the forum now and then, and I found the teachers on this forum are knowledgable and keen to help.
That is why I posted my question in hopes that Alan and other teachers can shed light on the usage of " many more/much more" etc.

thanks again for your participation.

4

And yet conventional grammar says that they are all adverbs or adverbial constituents. In the case of adverbial “a little”, it is as follows.

  • Little = adjective.
  • A little = substantivated adjective, i.e. used as a (substantive) noun: it has become a noun.
  • He was a little later than expected = the noun is used adverbially.
    In this last sentence, you will see that “a little” cannot possibly be anything else than an adverbial constituent, since there is no noun.

Now consider this: I’d like a little more foam on my beer. If “little” were an adjective here, it would modify “foam”. I would be saying something about the foam: that I like little foam. But that is not at all what is meant. “A little” modifies the adjective “more”, and nothing else:
A - I like more foam.
B - How much more?
A - I like a little more.
In addition, foam is a material here, and as such it cannot have the indefinite article “a”. The article does not belong to “foam”, but to “little”. The sentence *I’d like a foam is impossible here. Moreover, consider I’d like a few more books: the article cannot belong to “books”.

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. You will perhaps say that “many” does modify the noun, as in: I’d like to have many more books in my bookcase. You might say: I agree with the beer example, but I do want many books, so that it is an adjective here. But it is not. I could say: I already have a great many books, but I want many more. I am not saying that I want many books: I already have many books. I am just saying I want more books by a certain amount:
A - I want many more books
B - You want more books? Well, then I’ll give you two more books.
A - No, I want many more books!
“Many” says something about “more”.

All of the words and word combinations that modify anything else than the head of a noun group are always adverbial constituents; i.e. words that modify adjectives, adverbs, or verbs are always adverbs.

5

[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”.

6

You are right that one would expect “much more people” and “much more books” to be right, because “much” is an adverb and “many” is not; but alas, English grammar is quite inconsistent: “much” is wrong in either case. It must be “many” with nouns that take a plural verb: “many more people are …”. I can’t think of any other adjectives/adverbs that have this problem; I think there are no other.

You are right that it ought not to be so, because here the form of the adverb changes according as the noun changes, which should not be happening. It is odd. The origin of this is probably that speakers do not analyse all the time: much happens on intuition. If you ask native speakers, I suspect many will not know that “many” is an adverb in these cases. The subconscious will often regard adjective-like words as adjectives if they are in the right position and close to a noun, just as you did. The subconscious doesn’t think “hey, this word A has analytical function x, so let’s assign it the typical properties of x”; but rather “ah, word A is near another word that usually causes A to have these properties, so let’s do the same this time”. In other words, it thinks: “a little blue sock looks like a little more beer, and I am not in the mood to think any further; little books look like many books, so I will treat the whole bunch the same way”. It easily falls into this trap because many adverbs, like little and much, are also adjectives. Since there do not really arise any problems of ambiguity, it does not correct itself. Grammar has at some time in the past absorbed this inconsistency, and now it is fixed idiom.

7

Thank you indeed for your response!
According to what you explained and confirmed above, I summarize my current understanding,regarding the example sentences presented in my above posts:

  1. We hope that now many more people will come. (“many” is originally an adjective, but is used adverbially to modify “more”, or we consider it originally an adverb here, to modify “more”)

  2. We hope that now much more people will come. (“much” as an adverb used here is grammatically correct. Even though it agrees with the grammar rules, we don’t use it that way. )

  3. This room needs some more air. ( “some” is originally an adjective, but used adverbially to modify “more”)

  4. This room needs a little more air. ( “ a little” is originally an adverb, to modify “more”)

  5. This room needs much more air. ( “much” is originally an adverb here, to modify “more”)

6.many more books ( “many” is originally an adjective, but is used adverbially to modify “more”, or we consider it originally an adverb here, to modify “more”)
7.much more money/time ( “much” is originally an adverb here, to modify “more”)

By the way, may I ask: are you a native speaker of English? and would you please tell me if there are some references such as dictionaries or grammar books, supporting what you explained about " ‘many’ can be used as an adverb or used adverbially", would you please name them so that I can refer to them on this topic?

Thanks a lot!

8

Edit: there appears to be something wrong with the site, since I can’t see my formatting; I added comments in bold. I hope you can find them in your message. --Cerberus™

According to what you explained and confirmed above, I summarize my current understanding,regarding the example sentences presented in my above posts:

  1. We hope that now many more people will come. (“many” is originally an adjective, but is used adverbially to modify “more”, or we consider it originally an adverb here, to modify “more”)
  • I don’t think it is “originally” an adverb; all we can say is that it functions as an adverb with comparatives. As to it development in this direction I can only speculate; perhaps it comes from a phrase like “many more instances of x”.
  1. We hope that now much more people will come. (“much” as an adverb used here is grammatically correct. Even though it agrees with the grammar rules, we don’t use it that way. )
  • We don’t, we consider it wrong; grammar is not something that exists separate from idiom.
  1. This room needs some more air. ( “some” is originally an adjective, but used adverbially to modify “more”)
  • True.
  1. This room needs a little more air. ( “ a little” is originally an adverb, to modify “more”)
  • I’d say it is originally a noun, here functioning as an adverb.
  1. This room needs much more air. ( “much” is originally an adverb here, to modify “more”)
  • Most adverbs are derived from adjectives: I’d say “much” was an adjective first.

6.many more books ( “many” is originally an adjective, but is used adverbially to modify “more”, or we consider it originally an adverb here, to modify “more”)

  • Yes, same as 1.
    7.much more money/time ( “much” is originally an adverb here, to modify “more”)
  • Same as 5.

By the way, may I ask: are you a native speaker of English?

  • No, but I am sure of this; it is a well-known issue.
    and would you please tell me if there are some references such as dictionaries or grammar books, supporting what you explained about " ‘many’ can be used as an adverb or used adverbially", would you please name them so that I can refer to them on this topic?

  • I had hoped that someone else would confirm my statements, but I fear this thread was a bit too long to read. Now, if you agree that “many more books” is right, and “much more money”, too, I say the problem is not so much your disagreeing with the use of “many” as an adverb, but with regarding “people” as plural. Do you say “some people disagree”? If so, you treat it as plural, and you should continue to do so where “many/much more people” are concerned.
    It is hard to find this subject in grammar books; I suppose because it is such a small detail. I have found these websites:
    grammar-quizzes.com/fewerless.html
    forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1596157
    cultforum.com/index.php?showtopi … show=&st=&
    This link is an essay that is deliberately full of grammar mistakes, including “much more people”.
    books.google.com/books?id=MsIFbH … 22&f=false
    In this link you can see that the writer translates a Portuguese phrase literally as “much more people”, then corrects it as “many more people”.
    As “proof” that “much more people” is wrong, you can simply Google its incidence. I have done so for you on the website of The Times:
    google.com/search?q=site%3At … +people%22
    Now, replace “much” with “many” and compare the number of hits you get. Some native speakers may say “much more people”, but it is considered colloquial. You will see that the Washington Post gives the same number of hits. The New York Times gives many more hits for “much more people”, but all from comments by users, who do not write with much attention to detail.

9

To Cerberus:

Thanks again for your detailed reply. yes, I can see your reply in bold here.

The reason I asked if you are a native speaker of English is: Your explanation makes sense to me, but at the same time, I would like to hear from the native speakers, specially the teachers on this forum. But It seems that they just bypass this topic, I am a bit disappointed while I expected so much that they would shed light on this topic.

Thanks again, Cerberus, for your participation in this discussion.