The prop-word one: the big one, the red ones

Gist. So that an adjective or determiner can stand without a noun, English puts one/ones after it: the red one, a big one, these ones, the ones I like. This is not the numeral "one" but a substitute for a countable noun (Poutsma: "prop-word"). Conditions and exceptions. Only for countables: of milk — the white, not the white one. After a possessive it is usually not used (my one is colloquial). Curme considers one here rather a suffix that substantivizes the adjective; for annotation it is a noun. Examples. I want the blue one.; Which ones?; the one on the left. In UD. NOUN (NN one, NNS ones), Number=Sing|Plur; it has det/amod and takes the role of the whole phrase. The numeral one (NUM) has no det/amod (EWT 2.18: 0 of 425); ones is always NOUN (41 of 41). Sources. Poutsma GLME vol. 4, Ch. XLIII §1–3 (books/p/po/poutsma-1904-grammar-late-modern-english/text-4.md, pp. 592–594 = book pp. 1272–1274); Curme 1931 §57 1 "Use of the Suffix One" (books/c/cu/curme-1931-grammar-english-language-vol/text-1.md, pp. 518–520).

rule: en.nominal.num-one-no-det
what: the numeral one (NUM) has no det or amod — with them it is the prop-word (NOUN)
match: o[upos=NUM, lemma=one]
require: none c[rel~det, head=o]; none c[rel=amod, head=o]
severity: warn
source: Poutsma GLME IV Ch. XLIII §3; Curme 1931 §57 1

rule: en.nominal.ones-noun
what: ones is always a plural prop-word noun
match: o[form=ones, !feats.Typo]
require: o[upos=NOUN, feats.Number=Plur]
severity: error
source: Poutsma GLME IV Ch. XLIII §3; Curme 1931 §57 1

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/en/seeds/nominal/prop-word-one/