quite | almost | rather + NOUN PHRASE – English Grammar Profiler

In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 57 in the category of ADVERBs is defined as:

degree adverbs to modify noun phrases.

‘Quite, rather and almost’ are found in the given example sentences, so we have examined them in the iWeb corpus:

1 QUITE A BIT 60525

‘quite a bit’ is listed at B1 in the English Vocabulary Profile.  For example:

We‘ve got quite a bit of traveling to do here.  You‘re not going to clam up the whole way, are you?

listen

2 QUITE A WHILE 37930 3 QUITE A LOT 28508

4 QUITE A NUMBER 9117

5 QUITE A CHALLENGE 4535 B1

6 QUITE THE CONTRARY 4266 B2 (this is more of a set expression)

7 QUITE A STIR 2522 8 QUITE A DIFFERENCE 2305 9 QUITE A DISTANCE 2208

10 QUITE A SHOCK 1854

1 QUITE A LONG TIME 7670 2 QUITE A LONG WAY 913 3 QUITE A LARGE NUMBER 602

4 QUITE A LARGE AMOUNT 356

5 QUITE A BIG DEAL 334

1 ALMOST A YEAR 24501 2 ALMOST EVERY DAY 15786 3 ALMOST A DECADE 10687 4 ALMOST EVERY TIME 5472 5 ALMOST A MONTH 5389 6 ALMOST A QUARTER 4136 7 ALMOST A WEEK 4093 8 ALMOST A CENTURY 3777

9 ALMOST AN HOUR 3735

10 ALMOST EVERY ASPECT 3655 B2

1 ALMOST EVERY SINGLE DAY 769
2 ALMOST A FULL YEAR 509

3 ALMOST A DAILY BASIS 450 B2

4 ALMOST THE ENTIRE LENGTH 357 B2

5 ALMOST THE ENTIRE TIME 354

(*note ‘rather’ does not function as a ‘degree marker’ in most of the following Ngrams:)

1 RATHER A LOT 888 2 RATHER THE LACK 430 3 RATHER THE FACT 372 4 RATHER THE WAY 321 5 RATHER A WAY 320 6 RATHER THE RESULT 315 7 RATHER A SERIES 311 8 RATHER A MATTER 231 9 RATHER A COLLECTION 204

10 RATHER A COMBINATION 202

1 RATHER A LONG TIME 186

2 RATHER THE OTHER WAY 84 3 RATHER A WEAK TEAM 61 4 RATHER A LONG WAY 46

5 RATHER A MOOT POINT 28

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