less of 的解释?

Because natural gas is composed mostly of methane, a simple hydrocarbon, vehicles powered by natural gas emit less of certain pollutants than the burning of gasoline or diesel fuel.

A.

B. fewer of certain pollutants than buring of gasoline or disel fuel

C. less of certain pollutants than gasoline or diesel fuel

D. fewer of certain pollutants than does burning gasoline or diesel fuel

E. less of certain pollutants than those burning gasoline or diesel fuel.

答案给的Ｅ，不太理解为什么可数名词pollutants 要用ＬＥＳＳ修饰而不用FEWER,答案解释说LESS OF是一个词组,可以解释为很大程度上,但是如果说把很大程度上带回原句有变成了:汽车很大程度上排放有害气体,没有谁比谁多的意思了

很晕

首先，我身边没有资料，就根据印象说说吧

less of我的理解是作为副词修饰动词的，表程度，但不是“很大程度”，是“较少程度”，修饰emit，说明前者比后者释放的少了。

因此，比较存在的。less of ... than....

其次，为什么不用fewer of，你可以再查查字典，我有点忘了

最后，本题可以通过比较对称平行快速找到答案：than后面有those的只有E一个，就它了！！

这是大全的解释：

164, sec11-16

从比较对等的角度只有E正确，车和车比。

fewer of +可数，less/more of +可数/不可数

E中如certain去掉，则of 也应去掉，同时less改成fewer.

another example: with the sale less of 300 billion dollars.

网友观点：这里的比较是certain pollutants释放程度的多少，而不是pollutants种类的多少，所以用less

个人评价：有一定道理，但没有看到权威的注释，所以也无法肯定。

从网上找到两个句子：

"For this reason, it's a good idea to remove as much of this organic matter as we can from the water before it's treated with chemicals," Bouwer said. "Our research indicates that with riverbank filtration, we wind up with fewer of these dangerous disinfection byproducts in the drinking water."

Most Americans favor international treaties to rescue the ailing oceans and say they are willing to eat less of certain kinds of seafood threatened by overfishing。

不过从意思理解上看，第一句fewer换成less好像也并无不可。