Need help from native English speakers

[ceciliawei]

Hi, I am Cecilia, I am a linguistics major Ph.D candidate in Sichuan University. I am doing a reserch about the nouns of organs used as quantifiers. I am planning to compare this kind of usage between English and Mandarin, then find out the common concept and difference on the cognition from the two groups of language speakers on this topic.

For exmaple, in Chinese we could say 一身汗， means “sweat all over”,here “身”which means body used as a quantifier. There are many like 一鼻子灰(has the nose full of dirt on it, means to meet rejection),here 鼻子(nose)used as a quantifier…

And in English, we could say “a mouthful of food”…

Maybe English has not many as Chinese, this is also what the reserch interested in, why and how does English say instead on the same situation?

As an non-English speaker, I do not know much about the usages and not sure if it is correct, neither.

So, if any of you could think about some usages in English like this situation, please tell me via this forum.

Thanks in advance!

The name of body and/or organ used as quantifier…

[Charlie]

I’m not sure if I understand correctly but here are some that come to mind:

“A leg up” (on the competition)

“An eye for an eye”

“Foot in mouth”

[Ray]

How about: “That guy has money up the ass” (he has lots of money)

or: “I’m up to my eyeballs in trouble”.

Or “It’s neck and neck” (the race is very close)….

I’m sure there are hundreds more…

[ceciliawei]

Thanks Charlie! That’s great! I think the “a leg up” maybe not the exact kind of term I am looking for but likely close to it.

Usually it is the pattern like number+quantifier(here is an organ)+(of)+object(or other elemnets).

The other two are idioms with organ nouns but not used as a quantifier.

Thnaks! Hope more native English speakers give more ideas please!

[ceciliawei]

Thanks tigerkuma 🙂

I learned three new usages from you, but it is not the type I am looking for.

Could think about more usages similar to “a head of straight hair”

number + organ name + (of) + object(usually noun)

So many thanks!

[7]

Man, I’m sure there are some, but I can’t hardly think of any accept for pretty lame ones. Obviously, we measure in feet, so I guess that sort of counts.

Maybe “get an eyeful” if you consider “an” to be a number since it’s equivalent to 1.

If you allow that then you can also count “win by a hair”.

I just can’t really think of any that use an actual number.

[Brendan]

Man, I’m all thumbs on this one!!

[Steven]

i think the quantifier she refers to is something like ” a PAIR of shoes” or “a DROP of water”, but the word “pair” and “drop” should be take place by another word which describes a part of our body.

hopefully “a mouthful of food” can be counted as an answer

[Ray]

A fistful of dollars?

[Rick in China]

One thing I’m confused with Cecilia, is that your example is “mouthful” – which isn’t a body part. A mouthful is not a mouth, it’s a quantity of food which can fill a mouth.. is that what you mean by body parts which describe quantity? If that’s the case, maybe:

“A fistful/handful of quarters.”

“A head of lettuce.”

“An ear of corn.”

“A leg of the race.” (One segment in a relay or triathlon)

“A finger of fudge.” (different in different countries……..potentially very dirty)

“An foot of snow.” (length, not quantity, but still a measurement :D)

The thing is, the Chinese examples you use are more like idioms than body parts used as quantifiers specifically, at least as I read them…so I’m curious if you’re looking for specifically quantifications via body part, or idioms involving body parts, which may be a lot easier to come across?

Like for example, “A bag of bones” – the quantifier is the bag…but these are way more common. Curious what the desired result/output in the research is..

[ceciliawei]

Thanks Rick, the usages you mentioned are what we are looking for which like you understood the specifically quantifications via body part. And the concept of quantifier in Chinese language is not exactly the same as the structures of quantifications in English. We want to find out more of the cognitive concepts which in common and being different about how people measure things(include concrete and abstract things)via body part. And hopefully that may help the language teachers and learners during second language acquisition process .

Yes, u are right, mouthful is not a body part in a strict way, however, we consider this type of structure as markedness pattern.

In Chinese, some of this patterns are idoms, some are not. Here we are not concerning on idiom although there are some metaphor hide in those usages that formed idioms. Anyway, metaphor is everywhere of our languages.

That’s very helpful! I appreciate that! More phrases and questions are welcome 🙂

[ceciliawei]

Steven, you got the exact understanding! That is the thing I am wondering!

[7]

Two fingers of scotch

[Rob519]

Can try looking through the lists on this website:

http://www.eslcafe.com/grammar.html

Look for the part, Special expressions with body parts #1 – 15

Hopefully there is something within those long lists you can use.

(I didn’t check)

[ceciliawei]

Thanks Rob! I will check it out!

[Author]

Posts