From: ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de   
      
   ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote or quoted:   
   >|"viel" (or the Middle High German vil) was originally used as   
   >|a noun that entailed a partitive genitive. As you can see   
      
     The omission of the partitive is akin a bit to when the "of"   
     is dropped in "a couple friends." Compare that also to German:   
     "eine Art von Zahlwort" -> "eine Art Zahlwort".   
      
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