Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Give me a book.
which does not specify what book is to be given.
The denite article can also be used in English to indicate
a specic class among other classes:
The cabbage white buttery lays its eggs on
members of the Brassica genus.
4 NEGATIVE ARTICLE
Indenite article
An indenite article indicates that its noun is not a particular one (or ones) identiable to the listener. It may
be something that the speaker is mentioning for the rst
time, or its precise identity may be irrelevant or hypothetical, or the speaker may be making a general statement
about any such thing. English uses a/an, from the Old
English forms of the number 'one', as its primary indenite article. The form an is used before words that begin
with a vowel sound (even if spelled with an initial consonant, as in an hour), and a before words that begin with
a consonant sound (even if spelled with a vowel, as in a
European).
3 Partitive article
A partitive article is a type of indenite article used with
a mass noun such as water, to indicate a non-specic
quantity of it. Partitive articles are used in French and
Italian in addition to denite and indenite articles. The
nearest equivalent in English is some, although this is considered a determiner and not an article.
French: Veux tu du caf ?
4 Negative article
A negative article species none of its noun, and can thus
be regarded as neither denite nor indenite. On the
other hand, some consider such a word to be a simple
determiner rather than an article. In English, this function is fullled by no, which can appear before a singular
or plural noun:
3
No man has been on this island.
No dogs are allowed here.
No one is in London.
Zero article
9
Persian: sib, apple; sibe, the apple
Danish: stol, chair; stolen, the chair
Swedish and Norwegian: hus, house; huset, the
house; if there is an adjective: det gamle (N)/gamla
(S) huset, the old house
Bulgarian: stol, chair; stolt, the chair
(subject); stola, the chair (object)
Macedonian: stol, chair; stolot, the
chair; stolov, this chair; stolon, that
chair
Evolution
REFERENCES
Multiple demonstratives can give rise to multiple denite articles. Macedonian, for example, in which the articles are suxed, has (stolot), the chair;
(stolov), this chair; and (stolon), that chair. These
derive from the Common Slavic demonstratives *t this,
that, *ov this here and *on that over there, yonder respectively. Colognian prepositions articles such as
in dat Auto, or et Auto, the car; the rst being specically selected, focussed, newly introduced, while the latter is not selected, unfocussed, already known, general,
or generic. Standard Basque distinguishes between proximal and distal denite articles in the plural (dialectally,
a proximal singular and an additional medial grade may
also be present). The Basque distal form (with inx -a-,
etymologically a suxed and phonetically reduced form
of the distal demonstrative har-/hai-) functions as the default denite article, whereas the proximal form (with
inx -o-, derived from the proximal demonstrative hau/hon-) is marked and indicates some kind of (spatial or
otherwise) close relationship between the speaker and the
referent (e.g., it may imply that the speaker is included
in the referent): etxeak (the houses) vs. etxeok (these
houses [of ours]"), euskaldunak (the Basque speakers)
vs. euskaldunok (we, the Basque speakers).
7.1
8 See also
Denite articles
English articles
Al- (denite article in Arabic)
Deniteness
Denite description
9 References
[1] The 500 Most Commonly Used Words in the English
Language. World English. Archived from the original
on 13 January 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-14.
10
External links
11
11
11.1
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File:EuropeArticleLanguages.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/EuropeArticleLanguages.png License: GFDL Contributors: Own work Original artist: Daniel Nikoli
File:Question_book-new.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Question_book-new.svg License: Cc-by-sa-3.0
Contributors:
Created from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. Based on Image:Question book.png created by User:Equazcion Original artist:
Tkgd2007
File:Wikisource-logo.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg License: CC BY-SA 3.0
Contributors: Rei-artur Original artist: Nicholas Moreau
11.3
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