The example below involves a bare partitive construction consisting of a measure noun followed by the content noun:

The word kilo kilo refers to an exact measure, namely weight. Likewise the word liter litre is an exact measure for volume. Nouns expressing exact quantity differ from nouns of high and low quantity. The latter cannot be preceded by numerals, as is shown by the contrast below:

The partitive construction in which the measure noun of exact quantity occurs cannot easily refer to people, though this may be for pragmatic reasons:

The measure noun is not itself specified for singular or plural. In this respect, measure nouns differ from referential concrete nouns, which do determine number. With measure nouns, number is determined by the content noun, as is shown by the contrast below:

The sentences above also show that the measure noun is not put in the plural after numerals. In case the content noun can be recovered from the linguistic context, it can be left out:

Exact degree quantifiers can be preceded by the definite article, the universal quantifier, numerals and the negative quantifier gjin no.