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I wrote this sentence:
A carefully designed word list covering some phonological and orthographical patterns is dictated to the user in native accent.
Do I need some in the sentence above? In general when I should use "some" and when just a plural name?
Using some implies "some but not all", while leaving it out implies "all" (at least of the group you are discussing).
It could be either depending on what you want to say.
Use "some" for a plural noun [phrase] like this when you want to be clear that the list doesn't cover the entire category, just part of it. If you said, "covering phonological and orthographical patterns", that would imply that the list is complete, or nearly so.
