Like articles, quantifiers are words that precede and modify nouns. They tell us how many or how much. Selecting the correct quantifier depends on your understanding the distinction between Count and Non-Count Nouns. For our purposes, we will choose the count noun trees and the non-count noun dancing:
The following quantifiers will work with count nouns: many trees a few trees few trees several trees a couple of trees none of the trees
The following quantifiers will work with non-count nouns: not much dancing a little dancing little dancing a bit of dancing a good deal of dancing a great deal of dancing no dancing
The following quantifiers will work with both count and non-count nouns: all of the trees/dancing some trees/dancing most of the trees/dancing enough trees/dancing a lot of trees/dancing lots of trees/dancing plenty of trees/dancing a lack of trees/dancing
In formal academic writing, it is usually better to use many and much rather than phrases such as a lot of, lots of and plenty of.
There is an important difference between "a little" and "little" (used with non-count words) and between "a few" and "few" (used with count words). If I say that Tashonda has a little experience in management that means that although Tashonda is no great expert she does have some experience and that experience might well be enough for our purposes. If I say that Tashonda has little experience in management that means that she doesn't have enough experience. If I say that Charlie owns a few books on Latin American literature that means that he has some some books — not a lot of books, but probably enough for our purposes. If I say that Charlie owns few books on Latin American literature, that means he doesn't have enough for our purposes and we'd better go to the library.
Unless it is combined with of, the quantifier "much" is reserved for questions and negative statements:
Some Notes on Quantifiers
