Article (grammar): Difference between revisions
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==Reduction and omission== |
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The article is omitted in prepositional phrases when referring to places which, when one goes to them, there's a change to a distinct set of social behaviours. Hence the pattern "Mary had a little lamb. ... It followed her to school one day" (rather than "to the school") is standard, as is "I'll see you in court" (rather than "in the 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. |
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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.''" |
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In some Northern England [[dialect]]s of English, ''the'' is pronounced as {{IPA|[tə]}} (with a [[voiceless dental plosive|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. |
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In dialects that do not have {{IPA|/ð/}} ([[voiced dental fricative]]), ''the'' is pronounced with a [[voiced dental plosive]], as in {{IPA|/d̪ə/}} or {{IPA|/d̪iː/}}). |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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Revision as of 14:06, 22 June 2007
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. "Noun marker" is an archaic word for what we now call "articles" (in the context of grammar). [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.
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.
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, 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.[3] Also in English word order, articles precede any adjectives which modify the applicable noun.
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, masculine and feminine forms of articles differ. Singular and plural forms of articles can also differ in other languages. Many languages do not use articles at all.
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See also
References
- ^ Articles, Determiners and Quantifiers
- ^ The Use and Non-Use of Articles
- ^ Sidney Greenbaum, The Oxford English Grammar (Oxford University Press, 1996) ISBN 0-19-861250-8
External links
- Low MH 2005: "The Phenomenon of the Word THE in English - discourse functions and distribution patterns" - a dissertation that surveys the use of the word 'the' in English text.
- The Commonest Word in the Language: The social role of the word "the"