From: ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de   
      
   Antonio Marques  wrote or quoted:   
   >Stefan Ram  wrote:   
   >>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".   
   >Can one still say 'viel Danks/Glücks', or would that be wrong outright?   
      
     It's possible that there are regions where this is allowed,   
     but to me it sounds wrong.   
      
     (It can be found in some editions of "Nathan der Weise" (1779)   
     [Lessing 1729/1781] and other old texts.)   
      
     For me, it's not so much the genitive here as the absence of   
     an article that sounds wrong. "Ich wünsche viel des Glücks!",   
     with an article, would sound bizarre, but less wrong.   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)