WhatisaDeterminer?

Determiners are one of the nine parts of speech. They are words like
or . All determiners share some grammatical
similarities:

Determiners come at the beginning of anoun phrase, before

adjectives.
Determiners limit or "determine" a noun phrase in some way.
Many determiners are "mutually-exclusive": we cannot have more
than one of them in the same noun phrase.
If we do have more than one determiner, they go in a very specific
order.

Look at these example noun phrases. The first word in each noun phrase is a
determiner:

dog
people
brown rice
side of the road
pink elephants
oldest child
car

Main Determiners

These are the main determiners:

Articles

DemonstrativeDeterminers
PossessiveDeterminers

DefiniteArticleandIndefiniteArticle

The determiners and are called "articles". They are the most
common of all determiners. They come at the very beginning of a noun
phrase. We divide them into "indefinite" and "definite"like this:

indefinite definite
articles article

singular countable nouns only all nouns

a non-specific person or thing specific people or things

(singular) (singularorplural)

We use to mean non-specific. is general. We

use to mean specific. is particular. When we are talking
about something in general,we use or . When we are talking about

Think of the sky at night. In the sky we see MILLIONS of stars and ONE moon.
So normally we would say:

I saw star last night.

I saw moon last night.
Look at some more examples:

I was born in a town. The capital of France is Paris.

John had an omelette for lunch. I have found the book that I lost.

James Bond ordered a drink. Have you cleaned the car?

We want to buy an umbrella. There are six eggs in the fridge.

Have you got a pen? Please switch off the TV when you finish.

Of course,often we can use or forthe same word. It depends on

the situation, not the word. Look at these examples:

We want to buy an umbrella. (Any umbrella,not aparticular umbrella.)

It's raining! Where is the umbrella?(We already have an umbrella. We
are looking for ourumbrella, aparticular umbrella.)
This little story shouldhelp you understand the difference
between and :

A man and a woman were walkingin OxfordStreet. The woman

saw a dress that she liked in a shop. She asked the man if he could
buy the dress for her. He said: "Do you think the shop willaccept a cheque?
I don't have a credit card."
Articles with Countable and Uncountable Nouns

Notice that we use the indefinite article ONLY with singular

countable nouns:
By contrast,we can use the definite article with ALL nouns:

It is sometimes also possible to have no article at all— the so-called ZERO

article. This can happen with all nouns (but normally not singular countable
nouns):

The following table shows how we usually use articles with countable and
uncountable nouns,but see EnglishClub Tipbelowfor more about this.

a/an the ZERO

countable singular adog the dog dog

plural adogs the dogs dogs

uncountable amusic the music music

In English, asingular countable noun usually needs an article (orother

determiner)in front of it. We cannot say:
I sawelephant yesterday.

We needto say somethinglike:

I saw elephant.
I saw pink elephant.
I saw elephant.
I saw elephant.

DEMONSTRATIVES
The demonstrative determiners , point to something
that is close or distant. The closeness can be in:

space (next to the speaker, 20metres from the speaker,1000km from

the speaker)
time (now,yesterday,last week, next year)

near far

singular

plural

Like all determiners, demonstrative determiners come at the beginning of a

noun phrase, so they come in front of any adjective(s).

Possessive Determiners

We use possessive determiners to show who owns or "possesses"

something. The possessive determiners are:

Warning! These are determiners. Don't confuse them with possessive

pronouns.

Like all determiners, possessive determiners come at the beginning of a

noun phrase, so they come in front of any adjective(s).

Look at these example sentences:

possessive determiner with gender (Male, example sentence
Female, Neuter)

SINGULAR

M/F This is my book.

M His name is John.

F Her first name is Mary.

N The dog licked its wounded

paw.

PLURAL

M/F We have sold our house.

M/F/N The students thanked their Thai

teacher.

SINGULAR or PLURAL

M/F I like your hair.

Your two children are lovely.
Be careful with these three possessive determiners:

possessive determiner contraction (sounds the same)

1. your: you're (you are):

2. its: it's (it is/it has):

3. their: they're (they are):

Also note there as an adverb:

Be careful! There is NO apostrophe (') in the possessive determiner its.

We use an apostrophe to write the contraction of "it is" or "it has". For
example: