Timeline for Should the noun after "any" be singular or plural? [duplicate]
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| Apr 14, 2021 at 14:58 | history | closed |
Edwin Ashworth KillingTime Chappo Hasn't Forgotten jimm101 Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ |
Duplicate of When do we use "any" with countable nouns? | |
| Apr 4, 2021 at 18:49 | review | Close votes | |||
| Apr 14, 2021 at 14:58 | |||||
| Nov 4, 2018 at 9:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackEnglish/status/1059007346842783746 | ||
| Oct 17, 2018 at 1:21 | history | edited | herisson | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Made title more specific, to match the body of the question
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| May 4, 2017 at 12:08 | history | protected | NVZ♦ | ||
| Jun 16, 2013 at 18:29 | answer | added | Mari-Lou A | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jun 16, 2013 at 18:10 | comment | added | Shoe | In addition to the any's as used in the sentences above, there is also the 'free-choice'(CGEL) any, as in: You can have any book you want. In other words, you can choose, but you can only have one. | |
| Jun 16, 2013 at 17:48 | comment | added | John Lawler | There's two kinds of any -- Negative Polarity any, which requires a negative context (of which questions are one), and is the any in Do you have any books? -- and Possible Polarity any, which requires a possibility modal, and is the any in all the other sentences. They behave differently; Neg any can alternate with some in affirmative contexts, but Modal any is effectively equivalent to all, for instance. Oh, and the last sentence is ungrammatical -- no neg, no modal. | |
| Jun 16, 2013 at 17:38 | comment | added | John Lawler | tchrist? ironic? never! | |
| S Jun 16, 2013 at 16:41 | history | suggested | Mari-Lou A | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
formatting, spelling
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| Jun 16, 2013 at 16:40 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | @PeterShor I believe tchrist was being ironic! | |
| Jun 16, 2013 at 16:38 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jun 16, 2013 at 16:41 | |||||
| Jun 16, 2013 at 15:12 | answer | added | Shoe | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jun 16, 2013 at 14:21 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 16, 2013 at 19:31 | |||||
| Jun 16, 2013 at 14:20 | comment | added | Peter Shor | To forestall comments, "is any hardware store open on Sunday?" is perfectly fine as a rhetorical question, but I would use "are any hardware stores ..." if I was asking where to buy some tool. Looking at these examples, I am fairly sure that I can tell whether to use the plural and singular for any specific sentence, but I have no idea how to codify this as a rule. | |
| Jun 16, 2013 at 14:12 | comment | added | Peter Shor | I think what the OP is asking is: when do you use the plural with any and when do you use the singular? We say "any hardware store will sell you one", and not *"any hardware stores will sell you one". But we also say "are any hardware stores open on Sunday?" and not *"is any hardware store open on Sunday?" | |
| Jun 16, 2013 at 14:07 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | I’m afraid I don’t have any idea what you are asking. | |
| Jun 16, 2013 at 14:05 | history | asked | user1883212 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |