Sounding French she reveals a certain amount of silk, say (3)
I believe the answer is:
ell
'sounding french' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both related to communication as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'she reveals a certain amount of silk say' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'amount' could be 'l' (l is a kind of amount) and 'l' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'el' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ell that I've seen before include "Embellish with old measure of length" , "Old unit of length" , "Length of cloth" , "Former textile measure" , "Tailor's measure" .)