What par of seech is 'both' in the following sentence?

Question

What part of speech is 'both' in the following sentence? Is it a quantifier? Can quantifiers be determiners too?Both of them have fast cars.Thanks in advance.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

It is a pronoun.

Regards · Answer

Hi,

Already answered here, TS:

Can I consider 'both' and 'both of' as quantity words?

Regards

Tenacious Learner · Answer

Hi Regards,
Thank you for your reply and please excuse my only cell brain.

The thing is that I found this explanation in one of my books:
When 'neither' is followed by 'of' it is used as a quantifier to negate a set of two things.
I assumed that for 'both' is the same explanation. Though most sites I've seen it, they consider them a 'pronoun'.
That's why I'm puzzle.

TS

BillJ · Answer

Both belongs to the part of speech 'determinative'. In terms of their function, most certainly determiners can be quantifiers; leaving aside the interrogatives, all the indefinite markers (each, some, much, more etc.) have to do with quantification, and among the definite markers all and both are also quantificational.

In your example, Both of them have fast cars, the expression both of them is a partitive fused-head noun phrase, where them refers to a set x, and both of them then means 'both members of set x'.

BillJ

What par of seech is 'both' in the following sentence?

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions