I saw a nice sleep./ Indefinite article before Uncountable Nouns

[sadra1400]

1) Why do we use an indefinite article before sleep? Sleep is Uncountable.

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2)Is this sentence wrong? If yes, why?
I drink a delicious water.

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3) Is this correct?
We mentioned that uncountable nouns cannot take a/an. But if these nouns have an adjective before them, or phrase following them, we can use an indefinite article before them.

 

[5jj]

1) Why do we use an indefinite article before sleep? Sleep is uncountable.

I don't know what you mean by 'I saw a nice sleep'. Where did you see this sentence?

 

[Ostap]

I don't know what you mean by 'I saw a nice sleep'. Where did you see this sentence?

Probably it's like in Russian, where a "sleep" and a "dream" could be the same word.

 

[Rover_KE]

But we wouldn’t say ‘I saw a nice dream’ either.

 

[tedmc]

You could say "I had a good sleep" though.

 

[kadioguy]

1) Why do we use an indefinite article before sleep? Sleep is Uncountable.

See below:

Sleep
n.
[singular] a period of sleep

Did you have a good sleep?
Ros fell into a deep sleep.
I'll feel better after a good night's sleep (= a night when I sleep well).

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/sleep_2

 

[Skrej]

1) Yes, you can refer to a singular sleep in some cases, but you still can't 'see' a sleep.
Even if you saw someone else sleep, you still couldn't say you 'saw a sleep'.

2) 'Water' in this context is uncountable, so no article. It's a little unnatural to describe it as 'delicious', but it's grammatical.

3) No. Countability has nothing to do with adjectives, as you can see from my answer to #2. It's a matter of whether it refers to items that exist as masses or abstract quantities. It's related to the definition of the word itself, not any external modifiers.