Lesson One: Articles

2 Grado en Educacin Primaria

Modalidad semipresencial
Curso acadmico 2013-2014
UNIVERSIDAD CATLICA SAN ANTONIO (UCAM)
Lingstica, Morfosintaxis y Semntica de la Lengua Inglesa
Grupo C Prof. Laura Torres Ziga
Universidad Catlica San Antonio de Murcia - Tlf: (+34) 968 27 88 00 - info@ucam.edu - www.ucam.edu
What are articles?

Articles are small words that are used at the beginning of noun phrases:

(i) A/AN (the indefinite article):
a mouse, a new school
an elephant, an old school
(NO PLURAL FORM)

(ii) THE (the definite article):
the town / the towns, the new school
the eye / the eyes, the old school

Pronunciation

A is usually pronounced as a schwa: //.

The is usually pronounced as // before a consonant
and /i/ before words beginning with vowel sounds.
[Read this: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/the]


In these examples:
Do we use a or an?
Do we pronounce the // or /i/ ?



European car ???
FBI agent ???
hour ???
historian ???
university ???

Answer key: A European car / // The European Union
An FBI agent / /i/ The FBI agent
An hour / /i/ The hour
A historian / // The historian
A university / // The university

* The usage of a/an and // / /i/ depends on the pronunciation of the
sound which immediately follows. The important factor is whether this
sound is a consonant or a vowel.


When we talk about things or people in general, we do not usually use the :
Life is complicated.
My sister loves horses.

We normally put a/an with a singular noun
that is used to say what job someone has:
She is a dentist.

The usually means you know which I mean:
She has two children: a boy and a girl. The boy is fourteen and
the girl is eight years old.

Can you close the door?

We usually use the with superlatives:
Im the oldest person in my family.
She is the most intelligent girl I know.

We do not use the with possessives or determiners:
Paul is my friend. (Paul is a friend of mine)
This is Marys car.
I like this beer.



The use of articles depends on three different things:
A. The kind of noun were are using.

B. Whether we talk about something in general / in particular.

C. Particular examples may be described as having a definite or
an indefinite character.


A) What kind of noun are we using?


A / AN

THE


(no article)

singular
countable

a cat

the cat

*

plural
countable

*

the cats

cats

uncountable

*

the water

water
B) Are we talking about things in general
or about particular examples?

The does not mean all.
We do not use the with uncountable or plural nouns to talk about things in
general. In such cases, we use no article ().

Life is complicated. (=life in general)
He's studying the life of Beethoven (=one particular life).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most (meaning the majority of) is used without the.

Most birds can fly.
Most of the children are very tired.
C) Are particular examples definite or indefinite?
Shut the door!

I had a problem with the car this morning.

Lets go and see a film.

A man came up to a policeman and asked him a question. The policeman didn't
understand the question, so he asked the man to repeat it.

Lingstica, Morfosintaxis
y Semntica de la Lengua Inglesa


2 Grado en Educacin Primaria
Modalidad semipresencial
Curso acadmico 2013-2014
UNIVERSIDAD CATLICA SAN ANTONIO (UCAM)
Grupo C Prof. Laura Torres Ziga
Universidad Catlica San Antonio de Murcia - Tlf: (+34) 968 27 88 00 - info@ucam.edu - www.ucam.edu