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Determiners

This document discusses different types of determiners including articles, pronouns, numerals, and the zero article. It covers the uses and distributions of definite and indefinite articles as well as generic and specific references. Key determiners like articles signal new or given information and are used differently with countable and uncountable nouns.

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68 views

Determiners

This document discusses different types of determiners including articles, pronouns, numerals, and the zero article. It covers the uses and distributions of definite and indefinite articles as well as generic and specific references. Key determiners like articles signal new or given information and are used differently with countable and uncountable nouns.

Uploaded by

Z_Jahangeer
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Determiners

Lecture 6
The articles are central among
these units.

 They have no function independent of the noun.

 These linguistic units constitute a closed system.

 In addition to articles, this system includes the


pronouns: possessive, interrogative,
demonstrative, indefinite, negative, distributive,
quantitative, etc.
Pronouns and Determiners

Pronoun Determiner

This is a very boring book. This book is very boring.

That’s an excellent film. That film is excellent.


Pronouns function in much the same way as
nouns

This is a very boring book. ~ Ivanhoe is a very


interesting book.
That’s an awful film. ~ Scream is an awful film.

 On the other hand, when these words are


determiners, they cannot be replaced by
nouns:
This book is very interesting. ~ *Ivanhoe book is very
interesting.
That film is awful. ~ *Scream film is awful.
The personal pronouns (I, you, he, etc)
cannot be determiners.
This is also true of the possessive pronouns
(mine, yours, his/hers, ours, and theirs).

Possessive Pronoun Determiner

The white car is mine. My car is white.

Yours is the blue coat. Your coat is blue.

The car in the garage is


His/her car is in the garage.
his/hers.
David’s house is big, but ours Our house is bigger than
is bigger. David’s.

Theirs is the house on the left. Their house is on the left.


Numerals and determiners

 Numerals are determiners when they appear


before a noun.
 cardinal numerals - quantity, e.g. one book, two
books, twenty books
 ordinal numerals - sequence, e.g. first
impressions, second chance, third prize
 When they do not come before a noun,
numerals are a subclass of nouns, e.g. the two
of us, the first of many.
The Articles

 John saw a unicorn in the garden.


2 major types of reference:

 specific reference is to one or more specific,


identifiable referents, e.g. John saw a tiger in
the garden. The reference is here to one specific
tiger and one specific garden.

 generic reference is to a whole class of


referents, either distributively to any member
of the class, e.g. Tigers are beautiful beasts, or
collectively to the class as a whole, e.g. Sabre-
toothed tigers are extinct.
Article distribution

Generic or Specific?
A tablet is a machine. I got a tablet for Christmas.
The tablet has changed I installed the new tablet early in
modern computers. the morning of December 24.
Tablets are not yet to be I now own 3 tablets.
found everywhere.
Drawing tables and Without Microsoft Excel on my
diagrams is a process that tablet, I would find it difficult to
computers handle process data.
efficiently.
Music can be played on I play the music of Beethoven on
tablets. my tablets.
Countable nouns

Specific reference

New information Given information


Singular I read a book The book was boring,
Plural and some journals on the train. but the journals were interesting.
The train drove past Ø villages, The villages looked dirty, but the
Ø fields and Ø clumps of trees. fields and the trees were covered
with white snow.
Generic reference
Singular A lion is a dangerous beast. (distributive generic reference)
The lion is a dangerous beast. (collective generic reference)
Plural Lions are dangerous beasts. (collective or distributive generic reference)
Uncountable nouns

Specific reference
New information Given information
Singular I bought some wine The wine was expensive,
Plural and some clothes yesterday. but the clothes were cheap.

Singular There's some/Ø beer in the The beer should be cold by now.
fridge.

Generic reference
Singular John likes Ø wine./Ø Wine is expensive here.
Plural Ø Clothes are cheap there.
Special cases

 The definite article

We can recognize a number of cases where


the definite article is used without
contrasting with the other articles.
This is always the case with the following
categories of proper nouns:
A. Plural geographical names

 Countries and regions: the Netherlands, the


United States, the Midlands

 Mountain ranges, groups of islands: the


Rockies, the Himalayas, the Pyrenees, the
Andes; the Canaries (or the Canary Islands)
B. Singular geographical names

 Seas: the Atlantic, the North Sea, the


Norwegian Sea, the Pacific
 Rivers: the Thames, the Avon, the Danube,
the Euphrates, the Nile, the Potomac
 Canals: the Suez Canal, the Erie Canal
 Certain countries: the United Kingdom, the
Soviet Union
C. Various social institutions

 Cultural institutions (theatres, museums,


libraries, galleries, cinemas): the Globe, the
Victoria and Albert, the Bodleian, the
Palladium
 Restaurants, clubs, hotels: the Ritz, the
Sheraton

D. Newspapers: The Times, The Independent,


The Observer, The New Haven Advocate
(but zero article in names of magazines and
journals: Punch, Time, Life, Language)
E. Ships: the Victory, the Titanic

F. Organizations: the United Nations, the


European Union
 The definite article is also used with
nominalized adjectives, including certain
nationality adjectives. Such constructions
always have generic reference: the poor,
the rich, the blind, the English, the Irish.
 Note the difference between the English
(generic) and the Englishmen (specific).
The with longer noun groups

 We do not normally use the with U nouns


because they refer to sth in a general way.
 However, the is required if the U noun is
followed by a qualifier which relates it to a
particular person, thing.
 Example: I am interested in the education of
young children.
The indefinite article

 Itis used to talk about things or


people in an indefinite way.
 A or an are put in front of the sg.
form of a C noun.
 Example: An old lady was calling
to him.
The indefinite article

 it derives historically from the unstressed


form of 'one',
 Example: a mile or two /one or two miles/
 with noun phrases which do not refer, but
ascribe a property to the referent of the
subject NP or pronoun:
Ian is a Scot. Peter is an engineer.
She is a 1st-year student. He is a bachelor.
The indefinite article

 If, on the other hand, the NP refers to a


unique holder of an office/position, the
definite article (or the zero article) is used:
Peter is (the) chairman of the Board.

 After the preposition as, however, the


zero article is used: Speaking as
chairman, I cannot accept this proposal.
The indefinite article

 Althoughwe do not normally use


determiners with U nouns, we can use
a/an + U noun when it is modified.

 Example: She had an eagerness for life.


The indefinite article

 when using one individual person or


thing to make a general statement about
all people or things of this type
 Example: A computer can only do what
you program it to do.

 but usually we would use the plural form


of a noun without a determiner
The zero article

 The generic use - plural nouns and uncountable


nouns (‘undifferentiated whole’):
Lions are dangerous animals.
Theory must go hand in hand with practice.

 kinship terms (Mother, Father, Uncle, Granny):


Mother helped them. vs. The mother helped them.
 certain occupational terms
J. F. Kennedy was President of the US in 1961.
English zero article and definite forms of
nouns in Bulgarian

 abstract uncountables with generic reference:


Life is a struggle;

 institutions: go to church/school; go to/be in


hospital/prison (AmE the hospital)
(but: They went to the church but the door was
locked so they couldn't get in);

 means of transport and communication:


travel by car, communicate by telephone
 certain time expressions: Spring seemed a
long way away; Easter is early next year; at
dawn, after dark, before morning came

 meals (Dinner is ready);

 illnesses: appendicitis, diabetes, influenza,


pneumonia
But: (the) flu, (the) measles, (the) mumps
Ordering of determiners

Pre- Central Postdeter


Noun
determiner Determiner miner

I met all my many friends

 A sentence like this is unusual, because it is


rare for all three determiner slots to be filled.

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