English articles

This article is about usage of articles in English particularly. For theoretical background on the subject, see Article (grammar).

The articles are words that combine with a noun to indicate the degree of definiteness (specificity) of the reference being made by the noun. The articles in English include the definite article the and the indefinite articles a and an (and sometimes some). The use of the definite article indicates that the speaker assumes the listener knows the identity of the noun, because it is obvious, because it is common knowledge, or because it was mentioned in the same sentence or an earlier sentence. The use of an indefinite article indicates that the speaker assumes the listener does not know the identity of the noun.

General usage

the the the the the the the the The cells in the table can be exemplified as follows:

• indefinite singular countable

• before a vowel sound: I saw an ear, I received an honor
• before a consonant sound: I have a car

• indefinite plural: I saw cars
• indefinite non-count: I drink coffee
• definite generic plural: Cars have accelerators
• definite generic non-count: Happiness is contagious
• definite non-generic singular: I see the car
• definite non-generic plural: I see the cars
• definite non-generic non-count: I like the coffee in that restaurant

English grammar requires that the appropriate article, if any, be used with each noun, with several exceptions:

• most proper nouns

Rome was ruled by Augustus.

• pronouns and noun phrases

Nobody liked what he said.

• nouns with another non-number determiner such as this, each, my, or no:

My sister wrote this song about America's history.

In most cases, the article is the first word of its noun phrase, preceding all other adjectives. There are only a few exceptions—e.g., quite a story, too great a loss, all the time, such a nice man.

The little old red bag held a very big surprise.

In alphabetizing titles and phrases, articles are usually excluded from consideration, since being so common makes them more of a hindrance than a help in finding a desired item. For example, The Comedy of Errors is alphabetized before A Midsummer Night's Dream, because the and a are ignored and comedy alphabetizes before midsummer. In an index, the former work might be written "Comedy of Errors, The", with the article moved to the end.

In contexts where concision is especially valued, such as headlines, signs, labels, and notes, articles are often omitted along with certain other function words. For example, rather than The mayor was attacked, a newspaper headline would say just Mayor attacked.

Definite article

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

The definite article in English is the, denoting person(s) or thing(s) already mentioned, under discussion, implied, or familiar. It is often used as the very first part of a noun phrase.

The article "the" is used with singular count nouns (the car) and with singular uncountable nouns (the coffee) and plural nouns (the cars) when both the speaker and hearer would know the identity of the thing or idea already.

However, in English, unlike in some other languages such as French, the definite article is omitted before familiar but intangible concepts such as "happiness": Happiness is contagious is correct, whereas *The happiness is contagious is not unless a very specific example of happiness is referred to. The is also omitted when the noun refers to a generic mass object (Coffee grows in Colombia) or to a generic collection of countable objects (Cars have accelerators).

Pronunciation

In most dialects "the" is pronounced as /ðə/ the voiced dental fricative /ð/. According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, "the" may be pronounced /ði/ before words beginning with vowel sounds, before proper nouns, or to add emphasis. However, often in practice the pronunciation with a schwa is retained even before a vowel sound or a proper noun.

In some Northern England dialects of English, the is pronounced [t̪ə] (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.

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

Etymology

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 þe, the ancestor of the Modern English word the.

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. During the latter Middle English and Early Modern English periods, the letter Thorn (þ) in its common script, or cursive, form came to resemble a y shape. As such the use of a y with an e above it as an abbreviation became common. 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, or in the Mayflower Compact. Historically the article was never pronounced with a y sound, even when so written, although the modern, 19th and 20th century pseudo-archaic usage such as "Ye Olde Englishe Tea Shoppe" can be pronounced with a y sound.

Geographic uses

In English most cities and countries never take the definite article, but there are many that do. It is commonly used with many country names that derive from names of island groups (the Philippines), mountain ranges (the Lebanon), deserts (the Sudan), seas, rivers and geographic regions (the Middle East). Such use is declining, but for some countries it remains common. Since the independence of Ukraine (or the Ukraine), most style guides have advised dropping the article, in part because the Ukrainian Government was concerned about a similar issue involving prepositions. Another example is Argentina, which is now more usual than 'the Argentine', which is old fashioned, although others continue, such as The Bronx and The Hague.

The definite article is always used for countries whose names are descriptions of the form of the state rather than being purely geographical; for example, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Czech Republic.

The U.S. Department of State and the CIA World Factbook show the definite article with only two countries: The Bahamas and The Gambia. Although in title, these references do not include the definite article for the Netherlands, in the text description the name of the country is never used without it.

Indefinite article

"A" and "an" function as the indefinite forms of the grammatical article in the English language and can also represent the number one. An is the older form (related to one, cognate to German ein; etc.), now used before words starting with a vowel sound, regardless of whether the word begins with a vowel letter. Examples: a light-water reactor; a sanitary sewer overflow; an SSO; a HEPA filter (because HEPA is pronounced as a word rather than as letters); an hour; a ewe; a one-armed bandit; an heir; a unicorn (begins with 'yu', a consonant sound).

Juncture loss

In a process called juncture loss, the n has wandered back and forth between words beginning with vowels over the history of the language, where sometimes it would be a nuncle and is now an uncle. The Oxford English Dictionary gives such examples as smot hym on the hede with a nege tool from 1448 for smote him on the head with an edge tool and a nox for an ox and a napple for an apple. Sometimes the change has been permanent. For example, a newt was once an ewt (earlier euft and eft), a nickname was once an eke-name, where eke means "extra" (as in eke out meaning "add to"), and in the other direction, "a napron" became "an apron" and "a naddre" became "an adder." "Napron" itself meant "little tablecloth" and is related to the word "napkin". An oft-cited but inaccurate example is an orange: despite what is often claimed, English never used a norange. Although the initial n was in fact lost through juncture loss, this happened before the word was borrowed in English (see orange (word)).

Discrimination between a and an

The choice of "a" or "an" is determined by phonetic rules rather than by spelling convention. "An" is employed in speech to remove the awkward glottal stop (momentary silent pause) that is otherwise required between "a" and a following word. For example, "an X-ray" is less awkward to pronounce than "a X-ray," which has a glottal stop between "a" and "X-ray". The following paragraphs are spelling rules for "an" that can be used if the phonetic rule is not understood.

The form "an" is always prescribed before words beginning with a silent h, such as "honorable", "heir", "hour", and, in American English, "herb". Some British dialects (for example, Cockney) silence all initial h's (h-dropping) and so employ "an" all the time: e.g., "an 'elmet". The article "an" is sometimes seen in such phrases as "an historic", "an heroic" and "an hotel of excellence" in both British and American usage, although usually violating the phonetic rule in such cases. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage allows "both a and an are used in writing a historic an historic".

An analogous distinction to that of "a" and "an" was once present for possessive determiners as well. For example, "my" and "thy" became "mine" and "thine" before a vowel, as in "mine eyes". This usage is now largely obsolete.

The appearance of an or a in front of words beginning with h is not limited to stress. Sometimes there is a historical root as well. Words that may have had a route into English via French (where all hs are unpronounced) may have an to avoid an unusual pronunciation. This never applied to words of Germanic origin, as the hs would be pronounced and a used. Further, some words starting with vowels may have a preceding a because they are pronounced as if beginning with an initial consonant. "Ewe" and "user" have a preceding a because they are pronounced with an initial y consonant sound. "One-eyed pirate" also has a preceding a because it is pronounced with an initial w consonant sound.

Pronunciation of a and an

Usually a is pronounced as a schwa: /ə/. However, when the meaning of indefiniteness is combined with the meaning as the quantifier "one", the latter can be emphasized by pronouncing a as the so-called long a: /eɪ/.

Usually an is pronounced to rhyme with "Stan", as /æn/. However, in rapid speech the vowel is often degraded to a schwa: /ən/.

Representing the number one

In addition to serving as an article, a and an are also used as synonyms for the number one, as in "make a wish", "a hundred". An was originally an unstressed form of the number ān 'one'.

A and an are also used to express a proportional relationship, such as "a dollar a day" or "$150 an ounce" or "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play", although historically this use of "a" and "an" does not come from the same word as the articles.

The mathematically-minded might heed H. S. Wall's reminder that the statement "I have a son" does not necessarily imply that "I have exactly one son" or that "I have only sons". In other words, "The little words count."

"Some" as an indefinite article

As a plural

The word some is used as a functional plural of a/an. "An apple" always means one indefinite apple. "Give me some apples" indicates more than one is desired but without specifying a quantity. This finds comparison in Spanish, where the singular indefinite article 'uno/una' ("one") is completely indistinguishable from the unit number, but where it has a plural form ('unos/unas'): Dame una manzana" ("Give me an apple") > "Dame unas manzanas" ("Give me some apples").

However, some also serves as a quantifier rather than as a plural article, as in "There are some apples there, but not many." As a result, the meaning intended by the speaker may be unintentionally or even deliberately unclear, or the speaker could intend both meanings simultaneously: "I see some cars" could have the indefinite meaning in "I see some cars (but I don't know whose)" or the quantificational meaning in "I see some cars (but not a lot of them)".

As a singular

Some also serves as a singular indefinite article, as in "There is some person on the porch". This usage differs from the usage of a(n) in that some indicates that the identity of the noun is unknown to both the listener and the speaker, while a(n) indicates that the identity is unknown to the listener without specifying whether or not it is known to the speaker. Thus There is some person on the porch indicates indefiniteness to both the listener and the speaker, while There is a person on the porch indicates indefiniteness to the listener but gives no information as to whether the speaker knows the person's identity.

However, some before a mass noun (a singular noun referring to a non-discrete undivided entity) always has a partitive meaning: for example, in I'll have some coffee, some means a subset of all coffee.

Similarities in other languages

Yiddish, another Germanic language, also employs "a" (אַ) and "an" (אַן) in essentially the same manner.

In Hungarian, a and az are used the same way, except that in Hungarian, a(z) is the definite article. Juncture loss occurred in this case as well, since az was the only article in use in 16th century Hungarian (e.g. in the poetry of Bálint Balassa).

In Greek and Sanskrit, a- and an-, meaning "not" or "without", are root words, cognate with Latin in- (when used as a negative) and English un-, meaning without.

Italian has many articles (8 + juncture loss) basically expressing the same ideas of definite and indefinite as English ones. The article the corresponds to il, lo, la, i, gli or le indifferently (remembering that Italian has masculine and feminine nouns, so that it is not indifferent to join any one of those articles with any Italian noun, indiscriminately) and the English articles a / an corresponds to Italian un or una (again, the masculine / feminine distinction must be taken into account). Moreover, no geographical rule applies to any of the Italian articles corresponding to the article the, so that, for example, it is correct to say la Germania which means Germany, in English.

See also

• Article
• English grammar

External links

• Vietnamese learners mastering english articles
• "The Definite Article: Acknowledging 'The' in Index Entries", Glenda Browne, The Indexer, vol. 22, no. 3 April 2001, pp. 119–22.
• 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.
• When Do You Use Articles: A, An, The
• Etymology of the word THE on the Online Etymology Dictionary