I am doing an assignment for a TESOL subject at uni, and I have to explain, in a simple manner, the reason why certain provided sentences are incorrect.

Here is one I am currently stuck on:

"Many of Chinese students must study English for at least 6 years."

Of course it should be "Many Chinese students..." but why?! If it were "Many of them" or "Many of the Chinese students", and so on, it would be correct to have the preposition of.

However, if you say "Many of people" or "Many of students", etc, it is not correct.

I kind of understand why but it's hard to explain the actual reason. Can anyone help?

I guess you could say that 'many' acts as an adjective (describes a noun) so it should just appear before the noun 'chinese students'. Or you could say that the linking word 'of' is used to connect nouns, eg. the world of shadows.

Many is an adjective describing the subject "Chinese students".

After introducing the subject, you can say "Many of the Chinese students" or "Many of them".

You would use the definite article "the" with the object of a preposition that is specific. "Them" does not take an article.

Hopefully someone else can give a better explanation >_<

Perhaps "many" as a noun can only describe particular things ex. "many of the students" but not *"many of students", and "many" as a adjective only general things ex. "many people" but not *"many student".

But then there's "many a __" to contend with. You could say "many a Chinese student". "Many" is an adjective there but the article is going in between, which is pretty unorthodox. What other words work like that? "Nary"....

I guess even though you don't want to explain things with complex terms, knowing them yourself might help you to categorize words' functions grammatically.

Unless Chinese students was introduced prior, "many" can not be the subject of the sentence because we do not know what we have many of.

Chinese students are required to put a lot of effort into learning languages.
Many of them must study English for at least six years.

In the second sentence, "many" is the subject and "them" is a pronoun used as object of preposition replacing Chinese students.

There are two parts to this question.

First you have to determine why it isn't "of Chinese students".
Then you have to determine why it isn't "of the Chinese students".

1. When do we use "many of"?

* many of chinese students X
* many of the chinese students O
* many of coats X
* many of his coats O
* many them X
* many of them O

we use "many of" only when there is some extra word like "the" or "his", and also when we say "them".

2. What's the function of this extra word?
It defines the group being talked about. Instead of just all chinese students, or all coats, we're now talking about a particular group of chinese students, or a particular group of coats.
In the case of "many of them" we're also talking about a particular group of something that's been predefined.

3. So, what's the rule for using "many of"?
We use "many of" when we want to talk about a PARTICULAR group of (nouns). We should always show that it's a particular group by adding a word that shows this such as "the" "his" "her" "their" (or "them" for a predefined group).

4. So, why isn't the answer "many of the Chinese students..."?
Because in this case, we don't want to talk about a particular group of Chinese students, such as "the chinese students in this class". We're talking about all Chinese students, or Chinese students in general, so we just use "many".

If you try to break down the question logically like this, it becomes much easier to answer!

... i don't know if this is correct for your course, because it's not using all the grammatical terms, but it is a simple answer...

A lot of Chinese students must study English for at least 6 years :o


edit - the dreaded english grammar. just throwing this random reasoning out there

How many Chinese students must study English for at least 6 years?
I dunno. Many of them... So since you can't count them isn't it better to use "a lot of" for an uncountable amount ?

SammyB Wrote:Of course it should be "Many Chinese students..." but why?!

Many of requires a specific set of identifiable entities (many of you, many of them, many of these, many of the reasons), while many alone requires a general class of entities (many people, many reasons, many times).

Thanks everyone! What I had in my head was similar to your reasoning, icecream... But it was too convoluted. Thank you iSoron for putting it so succinctly.

SammyB Wrote:I am doing an assignment for a TESOL subject at uni, and I have to explain, in a simple manner, the reason why certain provided sentences are incorrect.

Because i said so, dammit. That's the reason. The same reason every aspect of every language is the way it is.

I never really studied english grammar, but here are some more examples.

Many of the world's people are poor.
Many of his ideas are crap.
Many of Jim's ideas are crap.
Many of these are fake. (where these is referring to something you just talked about).

One i'm not sure of...

Many of a company's employees are often disgruntled.

Is that grammatically invalid or is indefinite article + noun allowed?

zigmonty Wrote:Many of a company's employees are often disgruntled.

That sounds awkward to me, although it gets google hits.

yudantaiteki Wrote:

zigmonty Wrote:Many of a company's employees are often disgruntled.

That sounds awkward to me, although it gets google hits.

Sounds awkward to me too, but not quite awkward enough that i can instinctively say it's wrong.

That's exactly how I felt, and some of the google results seemed less awkward than that example:

- In today's computer-driven world, information technology and accounting employees have access to many of a company's most vital records
- Many of a company's suppliers (such as electricity, IT services, computer software) are critical to its every-day functioning.
- If many of a company's customers are into Facebook, then Facebook might be fertile territory
- Though many of a company's events are planned and carefully considered, other events may occur with little or no warning
- For this reason, it is not unusual for many of a company's suppliers to be creditors in its Chapter 11 proceeding.

I have the feeling that these examples are somehow different -- maybe it's just that they have more context. That example you gave might work better if it were part of a longer writing, especially as part of an "if" clause.

I think that it may have to do with the common use of "a" or "an" to posit something hypothetical -- for instance, "In an apology, the person who is apologizing speaks first" or "In a person's life, there will be..." I think that what follows that has to be a quality that is shared by most or all of the objects in question unless it's explicitly marked as hypothetical.

I think that's what makes the sentence sound wrong to me -- "Many of a company's employees are disgruntled" sounds like you're saying that if you take any company in the world, many of their employees will be disgruntled, which I don't think is true. If you look at the above examples from google, they're either explicitly hypothetical, or they really do describe things that are true for most or all companies.

A. "Many of a company's suppliers (such as electricity, IT services, computer software) are critical to its every-day functioning".

B. "Many of a company's employees are disgruntled.

here's where we need to find the difference, i think. (for the other ones, Yudan's hypothetical rule seems to work well, or some other rule is in play)

A. Many of a company's suppliers are critical to its every-day funcioning O
A1. Many of the company's suppliers are critical to its every-day functioning O
A.2 Many company's suppliers are critical to its every-day functioning X

B. "Many of a company's employees are disgruntled. ?
B1. Many of the company's employees are disgruntled. O
B2. Many company's employees are disgruntled. O

1. Why is A.2 wrong, but B.2 correct?
To make A.2 correct, we need to turn "it's every day functioning" into "their everday functioning".

However, we also see that now the meaning of the sentence has changed significantly. Instead of saying, "of a group of suppliers, many are critical" now we're saying "of the group of all companies (the universal group of companies), many have suppliers which are critical. i.e. we're now talking about companies instead of suppliers.

2. So what's the difference with B.2?
It doesn't change the meaning in the same way. In B1, we're saying "of a group of employee's, many of them are disgruntled". But in B2, we're still talking about a group of employees. "of the group of all employees of companys, many of them are disgruntled". It doesn't sound like what we mean is "many companies have employees that are disgruntled" (or we'd say that instead)

Of course, to say "of the group of all suppliers of companys, many of them are critical" doesn't make sense, since they must be critical to an individual company, specified or non specified.

.... so, i think it's the difference between predicating something "having" something, and predicating something "being" something. You can use "many of an X's Ys" with having, but not with being. ... sorry, i'm too tired to try to work through the whole thing. mmm sleep...

IceCream Wrote:A. "Many of a company's suppliers (such as electricity, IT services, computer software) are critical to its every-day functioning".

B. "Many of a company's employees are disgruntled.

here's where we need to find the difference, i think. (for the other ones, Yudan's hypothetical rule seems to work well, or some other rule is in play)

A. Many of a company's suppliers are critical to its every-day funcioning O
A1. Many of the company's suppliers are critical to its every-day functioning O
A.2 Many company's suppliers are critical to its every-day functioning X

B. "Many of a company's employees are disgruntled. ?
B1. Many of the company's employees are disgruntled. O
B2. Many company's employees are disgruntled. O

1. Why is A.2 wrong, but B.2 correct?
To make A.2 correct, we need to turn "it's every day functioning" into "their everday functioning".

I think there's some bad apostrophe/plural use there.

Many company's suppliers are critical to its every-day functioning X
Many companies' suppliers are critical to their every-day functioning. O

B2 is correct when spoken but i think technically should be written as

B2. Many companies' employees are disgruntled. O

Because you wouldn't say "Many company". The modified version of both A2 and B2 are correct.

There's gotta be some rules here as we're all from different parts of the anglosphere and we all agree, even on the ?'d ones lol.

Because he is doing this for TESOL, explanations about grammar need to be as brief and using as simple language as possible. If the explanation goes on more than 15 seconds or you have to explain vocabulary as well, the student will often become completely confused.

Many XYZ = talking about XYZ in general or as a whole group
"Many Chinese students must study English for at least 6 years."
This is talking about Chinese students in general.

Many of the XYZ = talking about a certain type of something, or smaller group within something
"Many of the Chinese students must study English for at least 6 years. (whereas French students do not etc.)"
This is talking about the Chinese students within a group of students eg. other nationalities.

In this situation 'of' is being used to describe what the 'many' belongs to and because 'the' is the definite article, meaning it identifies the specific thing you are talking about, it follows 'of' to express that meaning.

Well that is how I would explain it.

"Many of" requires a definite noun phrase (NP).
("Many of" + indefinite NP) is not a grammatical phrase.

"Many of" means a large number out of a definite set, therefore the following noun needs to be definite, ie. have "the" before it, or be a proper noun or a pronoun.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Because he is doing this for TESOL, explanations about grammar need to be as brief and using as simple language as possible. If the explanation goes on more than 15 seconds or you have to explain vocabulary as well, the student will often become completely confused.

Definitely, but it can still help to have a detailed discussion and then try to condense that down to a simple explanation. You don't want a brief and simple explanation that's incorrect.

AlexandreC Wrote:"Many of" requires a definite noun phrase (NP).
("Many of" + indefinite NP) is not a grammatical phrase.

"Many of" means a large number out of a definite set, therefore the following noun needs to be definite, ie. have "the" before it, or be a proper noun or a pronoun.

Maybe i'm just misunderstanding the terminology, but isn't "a company's suppliers" indefinite? Or is "a company" indefinite, but "a company's suppliers" definite?

Because "Many of a company's suppliers are critical to its every-day functioning" is grammatical. As are the rest of the examples Yudantaiteki gave. Any grammar that says they're not is... well... crap.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Because he is doing this for TESOL, explanations about grammar need to be as brief and using as simple language as possible. If the explanation goes on more than 15 seconds or you have to explain vocabulary as well, the student will often become completely confused.

I'm not trying to give him an explanation. I'm just discussing english grammar. Condensing it down to a succinct rule is his job.

A company's suppliers is the same as the suppliers of a company, so yes, it's definite.

AlexandreC Wrote:A company's suppliers is the same as the suppliers of a company, so yes, it's definite.

Ah ha! Now your explanation makes sense to me, thanks.

The Chinese students = specific group (i.e., at this university, etc.)
Construction: Many of [specific group of people] is OK.
Reason: English speakers use the 'many of' construction to emphasize that a portion of the total group did [something]. The group must be specific, not general.
Nuance/similar: A lot of (not a small amount)

Chinese students = "Is a general group of people."
Construction: "This doesn't work."
Reason: "The reason is that if we talk about Chinese students without 'the' it is referring to a 'general group of people'. There are millions of Chinese students in the world, but, when we talk about people using 'many of', we are talking about a small part of a specific group [draw a circle, lalalala). So we say 'many of the [specific group]..." It's about saying 'this is a small part. I'm talking about only them. Not everyone!' [Examples... comparison... test...]

Obviously, you wouldn't give the reason to anyone in ESL like that. You'd give dozens of examples and focus on the right usage then give the wrong usage, if they cared (in which case you would remind them that: How to use it is important; when to use it is important; why is not always that important - language lessons are short in ESL and communicative. 'Why' can take too long (high teacher talk time vs. student talk time).

Edit: To an upper intermediate or advanced student the second version, which I modified, would be appropriate, but as I said above its often best to show them 'how to' rather than explain rules that you could guide them to as they 'speak', which in Japan is 60% of what they pay for in a lot of cases.