English articles


The articles in English are the definite article the and the indefinite articles a and an. The definite article is used when the speaker believes that the listener knows the identity of the noun's referent. The indefinite article is used when the speaker believes that the listener does not have to be told the identity of the referent. No article is used in some noun phrases.
English grammar requires that in most cases a noun phrase start with a determiner. The most common determiners are the articles the and a, which specify the presence or absence of definiteness of the noun. Other possible determiners include words like this, my, each and many – see English determiners. There are also cases where no determiner is required, as in the sentence John likes fast cars, where neither John nor fast cars includes a determiner.
The definite article the is used when the referent of the noun phrase is assumed to be unique or known from the context. For example, In the sentence The boy with glasses was looking at the moon, it is assumed that in the context the reference can only be to one boy and one moon. However, the definite article is not used:
The indefinite article a or an is used only with singular, countable nouns. It indicates that the referent of the noun phrase is one unspecified member of a class. For example, the sentence An ugly man was smoking a pipe does not specify the identity of the ugly man or pipe.
When referring to a particular date, the definite article the is typically used.
However, when referring to a day of the week, the indefinite article 'a' is used.
No article is used with plural or uncountable nouns when the referent is indefinite. However, in such situations, the determiner some is often added. For example:
Additionally, articles are not normally used:
If it is required to be concise, e.g. in headlines, signs, labels, and notes, articles are often omitted along with certain other function words. For example, rather than The mayor was attacked, a newspaper headline might say just Mayor attacked.
For more information on article usage, see the sections and below. For more cases where no article is used, see Zero article in English.

Word order

In most cases, the article is the first word of its noun phrase, preceding all other adjectives and modifiers.
There are a few exceptions, however:
See also and Determiners and adjectives.

Definite article

The only definite article in English is the word the, denoting person or thing already mentioned, under discussion, implied, or otherwise presumed familiar to the listener or reader. The is the most commonly used word in the English language, accounting for 7% of all words used.
"The" can be used with both singular and plural nouns, with nouns of any gender, and with nouns that start with any letter. This is different from many other languages which have different articles for different genders and/or numbers.

Abbreviations for "the" and "that"

Since "the" is one of the most frequently used words in English, at various times short abbreviations for it have been found:
Occasional proposals have been made by individuals for an abbreviation. In 1916, Legros & Grant included in their classic printers' handbook Typographical Printing-Surfaces, a proposal for a letter similar to Ħ to represent "Th", thus abbreviating "the" to ħe. Why they did not propose reintroducing to the English language "þ", for which blocks were already available for use in Icelandic texts, or the yͤ form is unknown.

''Ye'' form

In Middle English, the was frequently abbreviated as a þ with a small e above it, similar to the abbreviation for that, which was a þ with a small t above it. During the latter Middle English and Early Modern English periods, the letter thorn in its common script, or cursive, form came to resemble a y shape. As a result, the use of a y with an e above it as an abbreviation became common. It can still be seen in reprints of the 1611 edition of the King James Version of the Bible in places such as Romans 15:29 or in the Mayflower Compact. Historically, the article was never pronounced with a y sound even when it was so written.

Indefinite article

The indefinite article of English takes the two forms a and an. Semantically, they can be regarded as meaning "one", usually without emphasis. They can be used only with singular countable nouns; for the possible use of some as an equivalent with plural and uncountable nouns, see Use of some below.

Distinction between ''a'' and ''an''

The form an is used before words starting with a vowel sound, regardless of whether the word begins with a vowel letter. This avoids the glottal stop that would otherwise be required between a and a following vowel sound. Where the next word begins with a consonant sound, a is used. Examples: a box; an apple; an SSO ; a HEPA filter ; an hour ; a one-armed bandit ; an heir ; a unicorn ; an herb in American English, but a herb in British English; "a unionized worker" but "an unionized particle".
Some speakers and writers use an before a word beginning with the sound in an unstressed syllable: an historical novel, an hotel. However, this usage is now less common.
Some dialects, particularly in England, silence many or all initial h sounds, and so employ an in situations where it would not be used in the standard language, like an 'elmet.
There used to be a distinction analogous to that between a and an for the possessive determiners my and thy, which became mine and thine before a vowel, as in mine eyes.

In other languages

Other more or less analogous cases in different languages include the Yiddish articles "a" and "an" , the Hungarian articles a and az, and the privative a- and an- prefixes, meaning "not" or "without", in Greek and Sanskrit.

Pronunciation

Both a and an are usually pronounced with a schwa:,. However, when stressed, they are normally pronounced respectively as and . See Weak and strong forms in English.

Etymology

An is the older form.

Usage

The principles for use of the indefinite article are given above under.
In addition to serving as an article, a and an are also used to express a proportional relationship, such as "a dollar a day" or "$150 an ounce" or "A sweet a day helps you work, rest and play", although historically this use of "a" and "an" does not come from the same word as the articles.

Juncture loss

In a process called juncture loss, the n has wandered back and forth between the indefinite article and words beginning with vowels over the history of the language, where for example what was once a nuncle is now an uncle. The Oxford English Dictionary gives such examples as smot hym on the hede with a nege tool from 1448 for smote him on the head with an edge tool, as well as a nox for an ox and a napple for an apple. Sometimes the change has been permanent. For example, a newt was once an ewt, a nickname was once an eke-name, where eke means "extra", and in the other direction, a napron became an apron, and a naddre became an adder. The initial n in orange was also dropped through juncture loss, but this happened before the word was borrowed into English.

Use of ''some''

The existential determinative some is sometimes used as a functional equivalent of a with plural and uncountable nouns. For example, Give me some apples, Give me some water. Grammatically this some is not required; it is also possible to use zero article: Give me apples, Give me water. The use of some in such cases implies some limited quantity.
Like the articles, some belongs to the class of "central determiners", which are mutually exclusive.
The contrasting use of any in negative clauses proves that some is polarity-sensitive, and occurs in positive clauses: "I have some objections to make", vs. "I don't have any objections to make; "I have any objections to make" and "I don't have some objections to make" are ungrammatical.
Some can also have a more emphatic meaning: "some but not others" or "some but not many". For example, some people like football, while others prefer rugby, or I've got some money, but not enough to lend you any. It can also be used as an indefinite pronoun, not qualifying a noun at all or followed by a prepositional phrase ; the same applies to any.
Some can also be used with singular countable nouns, as in There is some person on the porch, which implies that the identity of the person is unknown to the speaker. This usage is fairly informal, although singular countable some can also be found in formal contexts: We seek some value of x such that...
When some is used just as an indefinite article, it is normally pronounced weakly, as. In other meanings, it is pronounced.

Effect on alphabetical order

In sorting titles and phrases alphabetically, articles are usually excluded from consideration, since being so common makes them more of a hindrance than a help in finding the desired item. For example, The Comedy of Errors is alphabetized before A Midsummer Night's Dream, because the and a are ignored and comedy alphabetizes before midsummer. In an index, the former work might be written "Comedy of Errors, The", with the article moved to the end.