Missing an?

Poster   Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:22 am GMT
Subordinate Adjective Clauses
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Let's take on a project that will give us ample opportunity to show our skills. (Tells more about the noun "project")

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How is it that an 'an' is missing after "will give us"?
Serg   Wed Mar 11, 2009 2:42 pm GMT
I'm not an native speaker, but I think the sentence is correct. Here's why I think so.

The adjective ample can apply to uncountable nouns only: I've got ample time to do this job, There is ample room for the entire crew.

On the other hand, the noun opportunity can be used as both countable and uncountable: I've had numerous opportunities to explore the city, His excellent education gave him enough opportunity to build a brilliant career.

So, the sentence would be ungrammatical if there were an after "give us" because "ample opportunity" is uncountable in this context.
choose   Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:20 pm GMT
>>The adjective ample can apply to uncountable nouns only<<
This is incorrect. Read this excerpt from Obama's Dreams from My Father:
"as if our safe arrival would be yet one more example of God's ample blessings."
Also, from dictionary.com:
An ample reward. An ample supply of water.
Robin Michael   Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:42 pm GMT
I am a native speaker and the sentence sounds fine to me. 'ample time', 'ample opportunity', etc is OK.

I think that you are being very pedantic.

If someone is using "Let's": it implies a degree of informality. You are suggesting that the sentence should have a very formal structure.

So, rather like another example, it is an example of Telegraphic English, in which a formal sentence structure is shortened to make it more 'conversational' and less formal.
Serg   Mon Mar 16, 2009 7:49 pm GMT
choose,

You are right. I guess I oversimplified what Fowler's Modern English Usage says about the usage of ample. And what's more, the variant with an article isn't ungrammatical and its meaning would be the same as the one's used in the sentence.
furrykef   Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:33 pm GMT
I'm a native English speaker and find "an ample opportunity" to sound strange. I would definitely leave it out in this case, but I don't think it is necessarily incorrect to include it.

I do think it's rare that the word "ample" is applied to countable, singular nouns. The only example that came to mind was "an ample bosom". I put "an ample" into google and also came up with "an ample waistline", but most of the rest of the examples that came up seemed a bit contrived to me.

<< Also, from dictionary.com:
An ample reward. An ample supply of water. >>

"An ample reward" is certainly possible, but I don't think I hear such phrases very often. I'm not sure "supply" in that sense is countable. I mean, it's hypothetically countable: one supply of water, two supplies of water, three supplies, etc. But in this sense it seems more like a mass noun describing the total amount of water you have. Even if you had your water divided up into, say, a water tank in the basement, a bunch of water bottles in the refrigerator, etc., you'd still speak of "an ample supply of water" -- just one.

- Kef