For the last two days I have been trying to understand the concept of using some or zero article with uncountable nouns. I have searched on internet, read the relevant sections of some books but generally the sources are focused more on "a/an vs. the" and countable nouns. I will try to summarise my question here.
The first explanation I see on the zero article is the generalisation.
Water is a very important substance for all living creatures
Furniture is a costly item when you are setting up a home
I can understand why there is no article in the above examples as they are speaking about water and furniture in general, not some specific water mass or some specific furniture.
However I see some examples which seems to talk about some limited amount of a substance but lacks any article or determiner.
There's blood on your shirt
I eat rice every day
Water has got into my camera and damaged it
We need to stop the machine I see oil in the tank
The first three is from the books English Grammar in Use and Advanced Grammar in Use and I made up the fourth one but I believe it is proper to use it like this. How can we omit a determiner here? They don't look like generalisations to me. They all talk about some limited amount.
I thought that maybe that's because what's important in this sentences is not the amount but the substance we are talking about. Then I think I should be able to use both of the sentences below
I am going to the kitchen to drink some water
I am going to the kitchen to drink water
Lastly the post I read in the following link confuses me.
http://advancegrammar.blogspot.com/2009/08/some-and-zero-article.html
It says:
We use “some” in affirmative sentences and questions with plural and uncountable nouns when we talk about limited, but indefinite, or unknown numbers or qualities of things.
Example:
Some furniture arrived for you this morning. (not Furniture arrived…)
Would you like to hear some good news? (not…to hear good news)
The examples with blood, rice, water and oil were talking about limited and indefinite amounts of things but it was safe to omit the articles or determiners. Even though to use 'Furniture arrived ...' or 'to hear good news' in their examples seems somewhat wrong to me I don't understand why I cannot use these forms while I was able to omit determiners in the previous examples.