Determiners

As I have understood from your explanations, there are two types of determiners
(identifiers and quantifiers), and both can be divided into subcategories: four types
of determiners and two types of quantifiers. My questions are:

1) What determiners are in the first place? Is there any clear definition? After
reading some sites I would think that it is half a part of speech and part a function
Or we can say that they are a part of speech?

2) Is it possible to consider ordinal numbers and some/any as a kind of identifiers

(Ive heard that some do it)? I think there is some resemblance: he
is my friend/he is the second winner and give me a pen/give me some pens.

Re: Determiner
Like you, I have encountered many definitions of the term determiners and found
that hardly any of them seems to capture its sense and function clearly. Perhaps
because determiners are too fundamental an element of grammar, the process of
defining the term tends to be recursive, needing words that just tend to fold
repeatedly upon one another without yielding a clear sense or insight.

For example, take a look at this definition of determiner by the Oxford

Dictionaries: A modifying word that determines the kind of reference a noun or
noun group has, for example a, the, every. That isnt a very illuminating definition,
is it? And much less so because the sense of the kind of reference a noun or noun
group has is unspecific and unclear; indeed, I must say that that phrase itself
needs to be defined or explained to be useful at all in that definition.

Or consider this decidedly convoluted and longwinded definition of that term in

Wikipedia: A determiner is a word, phrase or affix that occurs together with a noun
or noun phrase and serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in
the context.

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Determiners

That is, a determiner may indicate whether the noun is referring to a definite or
indefinite element of a class, to a closer or more distant element, to an element
belonging to a specified person or thing, to a particular number or quantity, etc.
Whew! Thats what Id call a piling up of word upon word to explain something, only
to end up sowing confusion instead.

I think the definition of determiner by the Cambridge Advanced Learners

Dictionary & Thesaurus comes closer to being clear and instructive: A determiner is
a word used before a noun to show which particular example of that noun is being
referred to. In the phrases my first boyfriend and that strange woman, the words
my and that are determiners. This is a very admirable attempt to explain
something basic in simpler, not tougher terms.

But the clearest, most succinct, and most useful definition of determiner Ive
found is this one by the Macmillan Dictionary: a word used before a noun for
showing which thing or things you are talking about. The words a, the, this,
some, and every are determiners. I think youll agree with me that this is a very
concise, very instructive definition in clear, simple Englishone that truly captures
the sense and essence of the term.

With the term determiner defined as such, could determiners be considered half
a part of speech and half a part a function as youve come to think based on your
readings? I doubt very much. Recall that parts of speech is a term in traditional
grammar for the eight categories into which words are classified according to their
functions in sentences, namely nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. Of course, some old-school
grammarians used to consider the articles the, a, and an as a distinct part of
speech, but modern grammarians no longer consider them as such, putting them
instead in the category of determiners. And from the standpoint of modern
grammar, determiners are not a formal word class or part of speech but just
functional elements of structure.

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Determiners

SCHEMA FOR THE DETERMINERS IN ENGLISH

Now to your second question: Is it possible to consider ordinal numbers and

some/any as certain kinds of identifiers?

Yes, definitely. Unlike cardinal numbers, in fact, ordinal numbers normally

indicate the position of something in a list, such as 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so
forth; as such they function as definite identifiers. In the case of some and
any, they normally function as indefinite quantifiers, but they can also
function as indefinite identifiers when used in such expressions as
Some friend he is, making himself scarce when you most need his help!
(some here is used as an adjective meaning remarkable in a derogatory
way) and Any which way will do, so long as they are perfectly legal (any
here identifies an indefinite choice from among several choices).

The dynamics of English usage allows for a lot of overlap in the

functionalities of identifiers and quantifiers, and these two types of
determiners can actually form various combinations that yield even richer
modifications of nouns, as in the phrases my several little puppies in the
kennel and some twenty of their first fifty choices turned out to be flukes.

RELATED READINGS:
"Predeterminers are distinct from determiners" (September 19, 2014)
"Determiner Usage" (August 20, 2016)

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