Article (grammar)

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An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun, and may also specify the volume or numerical scope of that reference. The articles in the English language are the and a (the latter with variant form an). An article is sometimes called a noun marker, although this is generally considered to be an archaic term.^[1]

Articles are traditionally considered to form a separate part of speech. Linguists place them in the class of determiners.

Articles can have various functions:^[2]

• A definite article (English the) is used before singular and plural nouns that refer to a particular member of a group.

The cat is on the red mat.

• An indefinite article (English a, an) is used before singular nouns that refer to any member of a group.

A cat is a mammal.

• A partitive article indicates an indefinite quantity of a mass noun; there is no partitive article in English, though the quantifiers some or any often have that function.

French: Voulez-vous du café ? ("Would you like some coffee?" or "Do you want coffee?")

• A zero article is the absence of an article (e.g. English indefinite plural), used in some languages in contrast with the presence of one.

Cats love fish.

Linguists interested in X-bar theory causally link zero articles to nouns lacking a determiner.^[3]

Logic of definite articles In English, a definite article is mostly used to refer to an object or person that has been previously introduced. For example:

At last they came to a piece of rising ground, from which they plainly distinguished, sleeping on a distant mountain, a mammoth bear.... Then they requested the eldest to try and slip the belt over the bear's head.

— Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, appendix D

In this example, a bear becomes the bear because a "mammoth bear" had been previously introduced into the narrative, and no other bear was involved in the story. Only previously introduced subjects, and unique subjects, where the speaker can assume that the audience is aware of the identity of the referent (The government has increased tax) typically take definite articles in English.

By contrast, the indefinite article is used in situations where a new subject is being introduced, and the speaker assumes that the hearer is not yet familiar with the subject:

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.

— A traditional nursery rhyme

Reflecting its historical derivation from the number word one, the English indefinite article can only be used with singular count nouns. For mass nouns, or for plurals, adjectives or adjective phrases like some or a few substitute for it, or it is omitted. In English, pronouns, nouns already having another non-number determiner, and proper nouns usually do not use articles. Otherwise in English, unlike many other languages, singular count nouns take an article; either a, an, or the.^[4] Also in English word order, articles precede any adjectives that modify the applicable noun.^[5]

In French, the masculine definite article le (meaning the) is contracted with a following word if that word begins with a vowel sound. When the French words de and le are to be used sequentially (meaning of the), the word du is used instead, in addition to the above mentioned use of du as a partitive article.

In various languages other than English, the form of the article may vary according to the grammatical gender, number or case of the noun it combines with. (In some languages the article may be the only indicator of the case, eg., ::Der Hut des Napoleon, Napoleon's hat.) Many languages do not use articles at all, and may use other ways of indicating old vs. new information, such as topic-comment constructions.

Blogger: Lhantz_viar - Buat Entri

The

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The word the is the only definite article in the English language, and the most frequently used word in English.^[6]

The article "the" is used with singular and plural, countable and uncountable nouns when both the speaker and listener know the thing or idea already. The article the is often used as the very first part of a noun phrase in English. For example:

The end of time begins next Tuesday, at a quarter past four, just after fish and chips.

Here, "the end of time" is a noun phrase. The use of the signals that the reference is to a specific and unique instance of the concept (such as person, object, or idea) expressed in the noun phrase. Here, the implication is that there may be but are not multiple 'ends of time'; which 'end of time' it is that is being referred to is not ambiguous, because time can (supposedly) only end once.

The time is 3:29 PM.

There are many times, but the meaning here is the time now, of which (at the moment the sentence was produced) there is only one.

In normative spoken English, it takes two forms, the vowel being a schwa before a word starting with a consonant, and otherwise an [iː] sound.