An Analysis of Pluralized Abstract Nouns: With Special Reference to Richardson's Epistolary Novels

Unlike Japanese, English makes a clear distinction between 'singular' and 'plural' by grammatical nleans. Although the concept of plural should logically be applied to countable nouns, there are quite a few examples found in actual use of the language where an uncountable noun takes a plural form. Some abstract nouns can be pluralized to denote individualized meanings or components, while others may be pluralized to emphasize the quality, condition or degree. The latter type is specifically called 'intensive plural' (or 'emotional plural' by some scholars). This article discusses the use of the plural of abstract nouns mainly through a corpus-based analysis of the three epistolary novels by Sanluel Richardson who is supposed to have given a remarkable influence on sentimental literature.