THE CURIOUS

CASE OF
ARTICLES IN
ENGLISH

Look at the words in red. Decide why these words

were chosen.

Just in time for the opening of RailsConf, we

managed to push out the first release candidate
of Rails 4.0. This incorporates no less than
1,368 commits since beta 1. You can see the full
list of changes on Github. If you're interested in
a high-level review of what's in Rails 4.0, please
see the announcement we made for beta 1.

Notice the words in yellow. How are they

similar or dissimilar to the articles in red?
NBC News dropped Don Imus yesterday, cancelling
his talk show on its MSNBC cable news channel a
week after he made a racially disparaging remark
about the Rutgers University womens basketball
team. The move came after several days of widening
calls for Mr. Imus to lose his show both on MSNBC
and CBS Radio, which originates the show. The
remark has upset people from all sectors of the
country.

Notice the underlined sections. Why arent there any

articles or possessive or quantity words in their
place?

NBC News dropped __________Don Imus

yesterday, cancelling his talk show on its
MSNBC cable news channel a week after he
made a racially disparaging remark about the
Rutgers University womens basketball team.
The move came after several days of ________
widening calls for Mr. Imus to lose his show
both on MSNBC and CBS Radio, which
originates the show. The remark has upset

Determiners are used to narrow down

the reference of a noun. The most
important are:
- the definite article (the book), which specifies that the referent is
assumed to be known to the speaker and the addressee;
- the indefinite article (a book), which narrows down the reference to a
single member of a class;
- demonstrative determiners (this book, that book, etc.), which
establish the reference by proximity to the speaker and the addressee;
- possessive determiners (my book, your book, her book, etc.), which
establish a connection with the participants in the speech situation or
some other entity and thereby limit the reference of the noun;
- quantifiers (some book, many books, etc.), which specify the number or
amount of the entities referred to.

Articles (central determiners)

The indefinite article
The indefinite article is used with singular countable nouns. It narrows
down the reference of the following noun to a single member of a class and
is often used to introduce a new specific entity in discourse. Subsequent
references generally take the form of definite noun phrases or personal
pronouns, as shown in the following example:
1. A cat was the victim of a cruel attack when she was shot in the neck by
a pellet. The tortoiseshell cat was found wounded and frightened in
Grangetown, Middlesbrough, and brought to an animal sanctuary. The
pellet went right through the cat's neck and came out the other side,
leaving a gaping wound.

The Indefinite articles

(continued)
The indefinite article can also be used in contexts where the noun phrase
does not refer to any specific individual. Compare:
2 . I'm looking for a millionaire, she says, but I don't see many around.
3. I feel terrible. I need a friend."
4. Police are looking for a scruffy man aged 17 to 21.
In 2 and 3 the reference is to a non-specific new entity, while 4 refers to a
particular newly introduced entity.
The indefinite article can also serve, as in 5, to classify an entity or it can be
used generically to express what is typical of any member of a class
5. My husband is a doctor.
6. A doctor is not better than his patient.

The zero article

Corresponding to the indefinite article with singular countable nouns, we
find the zero article with uncountables 1 and with plural countable nouns (2
and 3) used with generalization / non-specific nouns:
1. We have wine on the table girls, drink it.
2. Two of his cousins are teachers, his sister's a teacher.
3. Inside the house Mr Summers found a family of cats shut in the bathroom.
The reference in such constructions is to an indefinite number or amount
(often equivalent to some). Note the classifying use of plural indefinite noun
phrases (as in 2), which is parallel to the classifying use of the indefinite
article. Zero-article noun phrases commonly express non-specific or generic
reference.

The definite article

The definite article combines with both countable and uncountable nouns. It specifies that the
referent of the noun phrase is assumed to be known to the speaker and the addressee. The
knowledge could be based on the preceding text, in which case we speak of anaphoric
reference*:
1. A doctor was allowed to carry on working after telling fellow general practitioners he had
contracted Aids, health officials revealed yesterday.
<. . .> The doctor, who died last summer, broke health service guidelines.
In many cases, though, the connection is inferred rather than signaled by repetition, and we
speak of indirect anaphoric reference:
2. The Mercedes took a hard bounce from a pothole. "Christ," said Sherman, "I didn't even see
that." He leaned forward over the steering wheel. The headlights shot across the concrete
columns in a delirium.
*Anaphoric reference means that a word in a text refers back to other ideas in the text for its
meaning.

The definite article (continued)

Reference may also be established through something following later in the text,
e.g. a restrictive relative clause or some other modifier of the noun:
3. Another potential voter starts to tell him about the car that went through-his
garden wall.
4. The patterns of industrial development in the United States are too varied
to be categorized easily.
This is called cataphoric reference.
The use of the definite article may also reflect the shared situational context of the
speaker and hearer. Examples of such situational reference are:
5. I think there's somebody at the door now.
6. Where are the children? Theyre in the kitchen, darling!