WHEN TO USE THEM: partitives are words or phrases that indicate a part or quantity of something as distinct from a whole. Anglophones must often use partitives to describe measures for things such as non-countable nouns that are normally not measurable on their own.

FORM:

[indefinite article + single countable noun + “of”] or

[number/determiner + plural countable noun + “of”]

For example:

• a bag of popcorn (“a” is an indefinite article)

• three bags of popcorn (“three” is a number)

• several bags of popcorn (“several” is a determiner)

Some nouns cannot be used in the singular form. Use a partitive to make them plural. There are many common phrases (collocations) that often go together in English. For example…

• a pair of pants

• a pair of jeans

• a pair of glasses

There are many partitives. English students usually learn them through exposure to the language. Special types of dictionaries such as a “learner's dictionary” or a “collocations dictionary” can help students find partitives easily. Learners can also type “list of partitives” in their preferred search engine to see a list of common partitives. One such list is available (please let Jamie know if this link is broken) at https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/nouns-uncountable-partitive-list.htm and here are a few examples of this variety:

• a bar of chocolate

• a cup of coffee

• a scrap of evidence