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Grammatical question about Go and territory: much or many?
Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 5:11 am
by Alcadeias
Hi.
English isn't my mother tongue, so I have a small question...
Which of these three sentences is the correct one? :
1. The goal of Go is to get as much territory as possible.
2. The goal of Go is to get as many territory as possible.
3. The goal of Go is to get as many territories as possible.
Thanks in advance for your answers.
Re: Grammatical question about Go and territory: much or man
Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 5:26 am
by PeterPeter
The goal of Go is to get as much territory or as many points as possible.
Re: Grammatical question about Go and territory: much or man
Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 5:46 am
by Boidhre
Much is normally used with uncountable things and many with countable things. The noun "territory" in go is not countable in the same sense that the nouns "water" or "area" are not countable, despite you being able to measure them using points, litres and metres respectively.
Territories however
is a countable noun. Also "a territory" is countable.
Edit: This explains it better:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/countable-nounsSo, 1 and 3 are correct. 2 is incorrect.
Something that may interest you:
If someone said: "He had quite a large territory"
You could ask either "How much did he have?" or "How many did he have?" But you're not asking the same question. The first is asking how much overall territory he had or how how much was in that specific territory (it's unclear actually from the question) and the second how many individual territories he had.
Re: Grammatical question about Go and territory: much or man
Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 6:20 am
by daal
Boidhre wrote:So, 1 and 3 are correct. 2 is incorrect.
While 3 may be grammatically correct, it is not factually correct. It is not the number of territories (think "lakes") that one wants to get more of, but rather the points secured by those territories.
Re: Grammatical question about Go and territory: much or man
Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 6:22 am
by Uberdude
Sometimes I try to get as many territories as possible
I've won with 7, I don't think I've done 8 yet...
Re: Grammatical question about Go and territory: much or man
Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 6:37 am
by Boidhre
daal wrote:While 3 may be grammatically correct, it is not factually correct. It is not the number of territories (think "lakes") that one wants to get more of, but rather the points secured by those territories.
Yeah, I think I misinterpreted the question possibly.
Re: Grammatical question about Go and territory: much or man
Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 6:49 am
by oca
Uberdude wrote:Sometimes I try to get as many territories as possible
I've won with 7, I don't think I've done 8 yet...
and that was on an 9x9 game is it ?
