Articles are used as a functional word with nouns in the common case or with other parts of speech acting as a noun in the common case. The most primitive way of explaining how to separate the indefinite and definite articles of nouns in English is: “an unfamiliar countable single object - /a/, /an/; a familiar object of any size - /the/”. But there are a huge number of categories of words and phrases for which the use of one article or another is regulated “as an exception”. Therefore, we can say that there is no single simple rule that tells how to use articles in English. The table brings together and classifies many special cases.
Logic of using articles
Often, the line between these groups is conditional, so it can be difficult to determine which determinant to use, and even more difficult to understand why it happens that way. However, in reality, all of them can be connected by a common logic, which is not always obvious:
- /a/ and /an/ arealways some part of the total;
- /the/ is always something unique, solid, concrete;
- zero (zero article) is always something universal, i.e. words that do not require additional representation or clarification.
Functions and position of the article in a sentence
There are many nuances in the use of nouns, which become clearer depending on which articles in English are used in a particular case. Articles help us understand the role of a noun in a sentence. They give an idea of the number, the state of the object, the attitude of the speaker to it, the locality.
The article takes either a place immediately before the noun, or, if the noun is part of the phrase, before all words that are dependent.
Mandatory use of the article. Null, undefined, defined
The question is not in what cases the use of articles in English is required. Because every noun or any other part of speech that acts as a noun needs an article, or otherwise a zero article - that is, a justified absence of one. So the question is which article to use in which situation.
Indefinite article
The indefinite article has two phonetic forms - /a/ and /an/.
The open form /A/ is read as [ə] and is used withwords that begin with a consonant. If the first letter in the word is a vowel, but when pronouncing the initial sound is a consonant, then open articles are also put in English. Examples: /a universe/, /a Europe/.
The closed form /An/ is played as [ən] and is placed before vowels. This also applies to cases where the word begins with a consonant letter, which is omitted during pronunciation, for example, /an hour/.
The indefinite article was once represented by the numeral /one/ and subsequently reduced to /a/ (/an/). He gives some new information about the object that is in the sentence impersonally, without relation - often he defines it into a category or transfers the properties of many similar ones to one object. By meaning here, as a rule, you can substitute /some/.
Definite article
The definite article in English - /the/ - has two forms of pronunciation - [ð] [ð], which are spelled the same:
- [ð] is pronounced in front of a vowel, e.g. /the airport/;
- [ð] is read before a word beginning with a consonant /the port/.
The definite article in English came from the Old English demonstrative pronoun /se/that/ and partly retained its demonstrative meaning. He singles out an object from the category of similar objects or separates a group into a single whole - and in both cases he specifies the position of the object (objects). Here you canmentally trying on /that/.
Zero article
The zero article is the missing article. There are specific situations in which articles are omitted in English, the table lists some of the most widely applicable usage guidelines.
As a rule, words without any service determiner have a more general meaning. In the case of a singular number or an uncountable concept, we can neither isolate the subject of conversation, nor single it out into a category, and in the case of a plurality, we cannot operate with the totality as a single whole. For example, we can ask for apples - /Give me apples/, but they are only a set of identical objects, a bunch that falls apart with any movement. And we can ask, say, to show the United States of America - /Show me the United States of America/, and in this case they will, in essence, act as an indivisible whole. There are special cases in which zero articles are used in English. The table below allows comparison with the uses of /a/, /an/, and /the/.
/Some/ or /any/
Sometimes the indefinite numeral-pronoun /some/ or /any/ is used instead of the zero article if the noun is a phenomenon or abstraction, and also if the plural or innumerable concept is used. Thus, /some/ and /any/ can be substituted as some kind of article in cases where /the/ is not suitable, /a/ or /an/ cannot be used, but there is a desiremake a semantic emphasis.
Table of special cases
We need to consider special cases of use in order to understand how to arrange articles in English. The table contains situations grouped by meaning in which the use of a definite, indefinite or zero article is required.
| /a/, /an/ | /the/ | zero | |
| general |
general concept of the subject First appearance of item if the word is used with a descriptive property definition, even if the word has an abstract or uncountable value transfer to the object of the properties of many similar objects with approximate quantitative words - /a pair/, /a little/, /a few/, /half a/half/ before a countable concept in a construction with /what/ before a countable concept in the construction /there is/ when mentioning a random representative of a certain category instead of the numeral /one/one/ |
item reappears direct reference to a specific subject contextual and indirect reference to a specific subject, in particular: singling out an object by feature, with ordinal number, with a superlative adjective, with a proper name in the composition before unique(single) words in a general sense (without descriptive or specifying details) - /the sun / sun /, / the moon / moon /, / the Earth / Earth /, / the floor / floor /, / the sea/ocean/; the uniqueness of both global and local scales is considered before words denoting a whole class, set before other parts of speech, except for a noun, that have acquired the meaning of a plural noun - /the strong/, /the old/old/, /the young/ if it is necessary to emphasize the importance of an item among other items of the same class |
with plural words that would be used in singular with /a/, /an/ with abstractions and substances in general before objects and phenomena that cannot be empirically described (innumerable) in a general sense if the word is preceded by a related pronoun in the objective case if nouns in general meaning (/reading/, /smoking/) if the word is followed by a defining numeral with nouns included in a comparative construction, or in a construction with prepositions |
| item | before the designation of the profession |
before plural surnames, nationalities before ordinal numbers with musical instruments with body parts before plural country names and geographic names,mountain ranges, archipelagos, lakes without the word /lake/lake/ |
with sports with days of the week, months and holidays before meal times with academic disciplines with constellations before proper names, titles and ranks and when addressing in the titles and headlines of printed editions of articles, on signs before one-component names of cities and states, streets, squares, parks, names of continents, individual islands, mountains, lakes with the word /lake/lake/ as part of the name |
| established usages | /such a/, /rather a/quite/, /quite a/very/, /a lot of/many/, /a great deal of/is worth a lot, /as a rule/like rule/, /at a loss/, /for a while/, /in a hurry/, /to have a good time/, /it's a pity/what a pity/, /to do somebody a pleasure/, /it's a shame/, /what a shame/, /twice a day/twice a day, /as a result/ / | /the sooner … - the better …/the sooner …, the … /, /the next/, /the only/, /the previous/previous, /the right/correct/correct/, / /the same/, /the upper/, /the very/, /the wrong/false/wrong/, /the central/, /the coming/going/coming/, / the following /, / the last / last /, / the left / remaining /, / the main / main /, / in the morning / in the morning /,/in the afternoon/, /in the evening/, (/at night/) | /to appoint …/to appoint/, /to elect …/to elect/, /on foot/, /by heart/by heart/, /by car/by car/, /at home/ |
Preschool Articles
It is better to give English articles for preschool children in the form of practicing specific examples, without focusing on patterns of arrangement from a grammatical point of view.
This will train their visual and auditory memory at the motor level and will help tune their speech center. Subsequently, when studying the grammar of a language, an intuitive sense will contribute to their orientation in the rules and special cases.
