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Certain determiners (many, most, little, least, few) can be used after possessive determiners, e.g.,

His/Mom's many friends/ideas.

Is this true of much too? As in

His/one's much money/valor

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    Have you been able to find any examples on the internet? Commented Apr 5 at 11:36
  • @RonaldSole poetry? Commented Apr 5 at 11:41
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    The link you provide is to a passage from a book saying that 'his much money' is not valid English. Most of the other results from Google Ngrams are false positives, for example words selected from two different columns of text. Commented Apr 5 at 11:55
  • His most... his least and His little seem doubtful (at least in the sense of "little=small amount", rather than "small size") Commented Apr 5 at 11:57
  • My least favourite drink is the red Martini. Commented Apr 5 at 13:54

2 Answers 2

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No, that's not possible, (except perhaps in poetic contexts)

"Lots of" is far more common than the adjective "much" - "He has lots of money" is more common than "He has much money". It might be possible to say "His large amount of money..."

But I'd use a complete paraphrase: "He has a lot of money, and it...." Here the pronoun "it" refers to "his large amount of money", but in a way that is more acceptable in common English.

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    Not sure why, but "he has much valor" sounds more idiomatic to me than "he has much money". And perhaps it should be noted that we do use "much" in negative phrases: "He doesn't have much money" Commented Apr 5 at 15:47
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    It's because "valour" is a poetic and romantic word, so gives the poetic context that makes "much valour" possible Commented Apr 5 at 18:01
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OP asked if this is possible

Possessive + much + noun
His much money ?

“Much” is far more commonly used as an adverb than as an adjective in modern English. The use of “much” as a determiner/adjective (modifying a noun directly) is rare, though technically correct:
Much time was wasted..
Much progress has been made..

So to answer OP's question, it can be used after a possessive when "much" is modifying an adjective or a past participle, not the noun directly. In such cases, “much” is acting as an adverb..
The pattern is :
His + much + [past participle/ adjective] + noun.
Example:
"His much hard-earned money -- -"

Here are a few examples from reliable sources:

  1. Like a serially unfaithful husband pleading with his much-betrayed wife for one last chance .
  2. Too Much is his attempt to face that loss, come to terms with their imperfect relationship and learn how to be an adult now his much-loved role model is gone.
    .
  3. Misericordia is the mirror image of his much-praised 2013 psychological drama. Stranger By the Lake
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  • Synonymous of very much en.wiktionary.org/wiki/very_much Commented Apr 5 at 18:33
  • @GJC My answer is based on the title - Possessive + much + noun Commented Apr 5 at 18:44
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    much modifying a noun is "rare"? Rarer than "much-praised" and "much-loved"? That doesn't make much sense to me. We don't have much time. I don't have much patience. Commented Apr 7 at 17:36
  • Why the downvote ? What is wrong in the answer? – I am setting some kind of record. Even my accepted answers, all my questions gets downvoted. Commented Apr 8 at 8:51

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