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General Information

• General information about 'a/an', 'the' and the zero article

• Determiners: what they are and what they do

• We use a number of words in front of common nouns (or adjective + common noun) which we call determiners because they affect (or 'determine') the meaning of the noun.

• Determiners make it clear, for example, which particular thing (s) we are referring to or how much of a substance we are talking about. Singular countable nouns must normally have a determiner in front of them. There are two classes:

1 Words which help us to classify or identify:

2 Words which enable us to indicate quantity :

Indefinite ('a/an'), definite ('the'), or zero (0) ?

• 'A/an', 'the' or zero before countables and uncountables

• The rules for the use of a/an, the and zero + countable or uncountable can be summarized as follows:

Basic uses of 'a/an '

• 1 A/an has an indefinite meaning, (i.e. the person, animal or thing referred to may be not known to the listener or reader, so a/an has the sense of any

• 2 A/an can combine only with a singular countable noun.

• These two facts underlie all uses of a/an. Some of the most important of these uses are discussed in the sections that follow.

Classification: 'a/an' to mean 'an example of that class '

• When we say a rose is a flower, we mean that a rose is an example of a class of items we call flowers; a daffodil is another example; a daisy is another example, and so on. We use a/an in this way when we wish to classify people, animals or things. We can classify them in two ways:

• 1 By means of general statements: – An architect is a person who designs

buildings. A clever politician never promises too much.

– 2 By means of labels (a/an + noun after the verb be): Andrew Bright is an architect

Classification by means of general statements

• General statements with a/an often take the form of definitions: – A cat is a domestic animal.

• Definitions of this kind are possible because we can easily think of one cat at a time. If we make general statements with cats, we are referring to the whole species, not one example, but the-meaning is the same

Cats are domestic animals .

• Many uncountable nouns can be used after a/an when we are referring to 'an example of that class' – This is a very good coffee Is it Brazilian?

Classification by means of descriptive labels

• We often wish to classify people in terms of the work they do, where they come from, etc. In English (unlike many other European languages) we need to use a/an when we are, as it were, attaching labels to people with regard to: e.g.

• Origins: He's a Frenchman/an American. Occupation: She's a doctor/He's an electrician. Religion: She's a Catholic/He's an Anglican Politics: He's a Socialist/a Republican

The use of 'a/an' to refer to 'a certain person '

• A/an can be used before titles (Mr, Mrs, Miss, etc.) with the sense of 'a certain person whom I don't know': – A Mr Wingate phoned and left a message for

you. • A Mrs Tadley is waiting to see you.

• The phrase a certain, to refer to people whose identity is not yet known, is common in fables and folk stories: Many years ago a certain merchant arrived in Baghdad