Count and mass
A count noun participates in counting individual units; a mass noun treats its denotation as an amount or substance for relevant grammatical purposes. The distinction is linguistic, not a direct inventory of the physical world. The cited textbook treats English rice as mass despite the countability of individual grains. Other languages use classifiers or different constructions with numerals. When an ancient measure expression appears, establish from the text whether it counts objects, portions, containers or conventional units.
The textbook documents Japanese numeral classifiers including -hon for long thin objects and -dai for many mechanical objects. These modern examples show that number expressions can require a classifying element. Do not infer a classifier from every ancient measure term; its grammatical behavior must be established in that language.
Gradable properties
Some adjectives or predicates are interpreted against a scale. The standard depends on a comparison class; a degree expression or comparative construction can make that scale more explicit. For a historical phrase, identify what the predicate modifies, whether a comparison is written, and how parallel passages use it. Do not infer a particular degree from a dictionary head gloss alone.
A degree modifier may indicate intensity, approximation or a threshold. Do not modernize a phrase by choosing a fluent degree word before reading its morphology and construction.
Polarity environments
Some expressions occur in environments with negation, questions, conditionals or other licensing contexts. The cited textbook documents English negative-polarity items such as anything and anyone, including occurrences outside simple negated clauses. For an ancient candidate, compare occurrences across affirmative, negative, interrogative and conditional clauses before assigning a label.
Practice: in one cited text, find a numeral or measure expression, a gradable property and a negated clause. For each, separate the written construction from the English rendering and test one alternate analysis. If the corpus is too small to establish distribution, say so.
Modern-language examples on this page clarify a linguistic pattern. They do not establish unattested sounds or forms for an ancient language. Follow the cited sources below and keep editorial readings separate from the surviving trace.