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.