ABSTRACT
Noun which has no number distinction and cannot be immediately combined with a numeral (e.g. *three rice), as opposed to count nouns such as dress: three dresses. Among mass nouns, a distinction can be made between nouns which refer to elements (rock, wood, water) and those which refer to collectives (cattle, rice, brush). When mass nouns referring to elements are used in the plural, their meaning changes, cf. wood vs woods, fish vs fishes.
