Determiners, Articles and

Quantifiers
Presented By:
Rushda Ashraf
English
Language
Instructor
 Definition
• Articles,
determiners
little words that modifies noun.
and quantifiers
(The student, a college, that car, those people,
whatever idea, yourare those
choice)
• Sometimes these words will tell us whether we
are referring to a specific or general thing( The
book, A horse! My kingdom); sometimes they
will tell how much and how many( lots
of
sweets, many chairs, a great deal of
confusion).
 Determiners
• A word or a group of words that introduces a
noun. Determiners includes articles,
demonstratives, quantifiers and possessive
determiners. Determiners are functional
classes not formal word classes.
• Determiner is a word that introduces a noun
such as a/an, the, every, this those or many( as
a car, the car, this car, those cars, every
car, many cars).
(Determiner the is definite article and a/an
are indefinite articles).
 Articles
• The three articles- a, an, the-
are a kind of adjective. “ The”
is called the definite article
because it usually precedes
a specific or previously
mentioned noun. It is
required when the noun it
refers to represents
something that is one of a
kind: The moon circles the
earth.
 Cont…
• We use “ the” when we
already mentioned the thing
we are talking about.
She
girl’shas gotand
eight twothe
children; a girl and a boy. The
boy’s eighteen.
We use it to talk about
geographical points on the
globe( the north pole, the
equator).
 Cont…
• To talk about rivers, oceans and seas( The Nile,
The Pacific).
Before certain nouns
when we know there is
one of a particular thing
( the sun, the rain, the
wind).
 Cont…
• “The is also used to say that a particular thing or
person being mentioned is the best, most
famous etc( Ahmar’s house is the place to go).
• Use to indicate a noun that is unique.
Praise the Lord.
The Columbia river.
 Cont…
• Used to refer to a time period.
I was very energetic in the past.
• Use to indicate all the members of a family.
I invited the Smiths for dinner.
 Indefinite Articles
• “a” and “an” are the indefinite articles. They refer
to something not specifically known to the
person we are communicating with.
• a and an are used before nouns that introduce
something or someone you have not
mentioned before:
I saw an elephant in the morning.
I buy a pen from a shop.
 Cont…
• an- used before singular
count noun beginning with a
vowel( a, e, I ,o ,u ) or vowel
• sound:
an apple, an honest man, an issue
a- used before singular count nouns beginning
with consonants( other than a, e, I, o, u).
a cup, a book, a pencil, a ball, a letter
 Indefinite Article(a-an)
• Used before singular nouns that are unspecified:
• A pencil
• An orange
• Used before number collectives and numbers:
• a dozen
• A gallon
Cont…
 Possessive Determiners
• Words like my, our, your, his, her, it and there
are known as possessive determiners. They
come before nouns and indicate ownership of
the noun in question, as their names suggest:
My leg hurts.
Moiz sold his house.
Bring your books with you.
These are our pencils.
She took her cake.
 Demonstratives
• The demonstratives this, that, these, those,
show where an object or person is relation to
in the speaker.
• This( singular) and these( plural) refer to an
object or person near the speaker.
That( singular) and those( plural) refer to an
object or person away from the speaker. It
can be a
physical closeness or distance as in:
Who owns that house? (distant)
Is this Tashfeen’s house? (close)
 Cont…
• Or it can be a psychological distance in:
• as
• That’s nothing to do with me. ( distant)
• This is a niceofsurprise.
The position ( close) is:
demonstratives
Before the noun
Before the word ‘one’
Before an adjective + noun
Alone when the noun is ‘understood’
 Quantifiers
• A quantifier is a word(or phrase) which indicates
a number or amount being referred to. It
generally comes before noun( or noun phrase).
• Some, many, a lot of, a few are the examples
of quantifiers.
• Quantifiers can be used with both countable and
uncountable nouns.
There are some books on the desk.
He has got only a few books.
How much money have you got.
 Cont…
With uncountable With countable With both
nouns nouns

much many All/ enough

A little/ a bit A few More /less

A great deal of A number of/several No/ not any

A large amount of A majority of/ a Some/ any

great number of

a large quantity of A large number of Lot of/ plenty of

The End