Determiners

.INTRODUCTION ( DETERMINERS ) 1p.

2.CLASSES OF DETERMINERS 1-2p.

3.DEFINITE AND INDEFINIT EDETERMINERS ( articles ) 3-6p.

4.DEMONSTRATIVES 6-7p.

5. POSSESSIVES 7-8

6. QUANTIFIERS ( gradable ) 8-12p.

7. NUMBERS 13-14p.

8. EXCLAMATIVES 14p.

9. DISTRIBUTIVES 15p.

10. CONCLUSION 15p.

11. REFERNCES 16p.

I.DETERMENERS (what are determiners?)

Determiners are little words that go with nouns and set them in context, words like a , the, my, which, some and etc. They are a consistent stumbling block for most non-native speakers of English. Determiners are particular type of adjective. They precede a noun and add information about that noun. The determiner , along with the adjective , usually indicates whether a noun is singular or plural , masculine or feminine. In other words , it indicates NUNBER or GENDER. This means that most determiners have several different forms. Some common determiners are articles like, a , an ,the; possessive adjectives like, my, your, his ,her, its, our, and their ; and demonstrative adjectives, like this, that , these, and ,those.

Modern grammarians and linguists made a clear distinction between adjectives and determiners , because they have different sorts of meanings and different uses. Adjectives tell us about the qualities of the thing referred to (red cells , a blinding flash ). Determiners set the thing in context.

II. CLASSES OF DETERMIERS

There are seven classes of determiners

A. The Definite and Indefinite articles:

the , a, an

B. The Demonstratives:

this , that , those

C. The Possessives

my , your, his, her, its, our, , their

D. The Quantifiers

A few, a little , much, many, a lot of, most , any, enough, some etc

E. The numbers

F. The exclimatives:

such and what

G. The distributives:

either , or, neither , nor , each , every

A. Definite and Indefinite articles

What is an article?

An article is a member of a small class o determiners that identify a noun’s

- definite or indefinite reference , and

- - new or given status.

The articles do not have gender in English ( there are no masculine or feminine articles). Articles in English are invariable. That is, they do not change according to the gender or number of the noun they refer to , e.g. the boy , the woman , the children.

a. Definite article : the

Examples:

1. The man.

2.The woman.

3.The boy.

4.The boys (n.b. plural)

* The usage of the article the

1.to refer to something which has already been mentioned.

Example: An elephant and a mouse fell in love. The mouse

loved the elephant’s long trunk , and the elephant

loved the mouse’s tiny nose.

2.when both the speaker and listener know what is being talked about , even if it has not been mentioned before.

Example: “Where is the bathroom ?”

“ It is on the first floor.”

3.in sentences or clauses where we define or identify a particular person or object :

Example: The man who wrote this book is famous.

“Which car did you scratch?” The red one.

My house is the one with the blue door.

4. to refer to objects we regard as unique :

Examples: the sun, the moon , the world

5. before superlatives and ordinal numbers:

Examples: the highest building, the first page , the last chapter

6. with adjectives, to refer to a whole group of people:

Examples: the Japanese, the old

7. with names of geographical areas and oceans:

Examples: the Caribbean , the Sahara , the Atlantic

8. with decades , or groups of years:

Examples: she grew up in the seventies