Article (grammar)

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“The” redirects here. For other uses, see The (disambiguation).

An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun.[1]

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 black 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 words some or any often have that function.
French: Voulez-vous du café ? ("Do you want 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. Linguists hypothesize the absence as a zero article based on the X-bar theory.
Cats are mammals.

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[edit] Logic of definite articles

In English, a definite article is typically used to refer to an object or person who 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 like "the bear" or unique subjects, where the speaker can assume that the audience is aware of the identity of the referent (The heart has its reasons. . . ) typically take definite articles in English.

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. In English, unlike many other languages, all singular count nouns must take an article, either the or a(n).[3]

[edit] The

The word the is the only definite article of the English language. The is the most common word in the English language.[4]

The article the is used in English as the very first part of a noun phrase. For example:

It's the end of time.

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 is one end of time, and that it has arrived.

The time is 9:40 AM.

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.

That bear is the hairiest being ever.

Only one being can be the hairiest ever.

[edit] Etymology

Linguists believe that the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages (i.e., the Proto-Indo-European language) did not have a definite article. Most of the languages in this family do not have definite or indefinite articles; there is no article in Latin, Sanskrit, or in some modern Indo-European languages like standard Russian. Errors with the use of the and other determiners are common in people learning English. Classical Greek has a definite article, but Homeric Greek did not. In the etymologies of these and many other languages, the definite article arose by a demonstrative pronoun or adjective changing its usage; compare the fate of the Latin demonstrative "ille" (meaning, "that") in the Romance languages, becoming French le, la, l’, and les, Spanish el, la, lo, los, and las, Italian il, la, lo, l’, i, gli, and le, and Portuguese o, os, a, and as.

The and that are common developments from the same Old English system. Old English had a definite article se, in the masculine gender, seo (feminine), and þæt (neuter). In Middle English these had all merged into the, the ancestor of the Modern English word.

In Middle English the (þe) was frequently abbreviated as a þ with a small e above it, similar to the abbreviation for that, which was a þ with a small t above it. When the letter Thorn evolved into a y shape in latter Middle English and Early Modern English, the abbreviation similarly changed to a y with an e above it. This can still be seen in reprints of the 1611 edition of the King James Version of the Bible in places such as Romans 15:29.

[edit] Reduction and omission

The article is omitted in prepositional phrases when referring to places which, when one goes to them, there's a change to an distinct set of social behaviours. Hence the pattern "Mary had a little lamb. ... It followed her to school one day" is standard, as is "I'll see you in court". American English has fewer of these than does the language of Britain. Such a phrase as "went to hospital" seems to Americans to be missing something.

In informal writing, such as notes or diaries, the definite article and some other particles are often omitted, for example, "Must pick up prescription at pharmacy today."

In some Northern England dialects of English, the is pronounced as [tə] (with a dental t) or as a glottal stop, usually written in eye dialect as <t>; in some dialects it reduces to nothing. This is known as definite article reduction; see that article for further details.

In dialects that do not have /ð/ (voiced dental fricative), the is pronounced with a voiced dental plosive, as in /d̪ə/ or /d̪iː/).

[edit] The in popular culture

In the movie Return of the Killer Tomatoes, a framing sequence has a Guess the Mystery Word contest. In a fourth wall-breaking scene, Professor Gangrene is called up and asked to guess the mystery word, which, he is told, is a common word. The word ends up being "the", which he says by accident, winning the contest.

A UK based rock band calls itself The The.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Articles, Determiners and Quantifiers
  2. ^ The Use and Non-Use of Articles
  3. ^ Sidney Greenbaum, The Oxford English Grammar (Oxford University Press, 1996) ISBN 0-19-861250-8
  4. ^ World English. The 500 Most Commonly Used Words in the English Language. Retrieved on 2007-01-14.

[edit] External links

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