"much" vs. "a lot of"

[Joel S. Berson]

Thanks, Larry.  This explains a lot, or much, as
the case may be.  (And agrees with what my friend
and I were guessing, that "much" sounds better in negative phrasings.)

Re Wilson's question and adj. vs. adv.:
>[Does] "I don't drink much coffee" have the same meaning as "I don't
>drink coffee much," in your opinion?

My answer (contrary to Larry) is I take them as much the same.

Joel

P.S.  There's been a lot of chatter today on
various email lists I subscribe to.  I infer that many are possessed by snow.

At 2/5/2014 07:25 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>There has indeed been a lot of ink spilled over
>the negative polarity status of
>"much".  Essentially, in most environments
>"much" needs a negative "licenser", as those
>working on such phenomena call it, much as do
>"any", "ever", "yet", "lift a finger",
>etc.  That's why "I don't drink much coffee"
>sounds better than "I drink much
>coffee".  Depending on the syntactic frame,
>"much" can occur in other contexts without a
>negative licenser, e.g. before comparatives
>("I'm feeling much better") or in equatives
>("She drinks as much as he does") or in a few
>other contexts ("he eats much too much").  But
>basically a rule of thumb is that in most
>environments in which both "a lot of" and "much"
>can occur, the latter is a negative polarity
>item.  There was a book I read once and later
>cited that looked at Agatha Christie novels and
>showed that the occurrences of "much" without a
>negative licenser are predominantly those
>uttered by non-native speakers, e.g. Hercule Poirot.
>
>(This is a bit oversimplified in that "negative
>polarity items" will also typically occur in
>questions ("Does he drink much?") and other
>contexts that are not strictly negative but
>highlight the possibility of a negation ("I'll
>be {surprised/?relieved} if he has much to say
>about it").   But these are again typical
>characteristics of negative polarity items, not
>just "much".   Notice too that while we can say
>"Much *he* knows/cares about it", that can only
>be interpreted ironically, i.e. = "Not much
".
>
>LH
>...
> >> On Feb 5, 2014, at 5:14 PM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> ---------------------- Information from the
> mail header -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> >> Subject:      "much" vs. "a lot of"
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> A friend (born 1940s and remained in Boston area) remarked that she
> >> would say "we have a lot of snow in New England" but not "we have
> >> much snow in New England".  So would I (NYC).  We wondered about
> >> that, about other verbs and objects, and
> negatives vs. positives.  Such as:
> >>
> >> "I have a lot of coffee."
> >> "I don't drink much coffee"
> >>
> >> Has there been any analysis?  Is "much' vs. "a lot of" regional?
> >>
> >> Joel (who does not possess the usual reference books, and is
> >> momentarily possessed by snow).

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