Grammar is Totally RADICAL!
In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
Articles combine with nouns to form noun phrases, and typically specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun phrase.
In English, the and a (rendered as an when followed by a vowel sound) are the definite and indefinite articles respectively. Articles in many other languages also carry additional grammatical information such as gender, number, and case. Articles are part of a broader category called determiners, which also includes demonstratives, possessive determiners, and quantifiers. In linguistic interlinear glossing, articles are abbreviated as ART.
A definite article is an article that marks a definite noun phrase. Definite articles, such as the English the, are used to refer to a particular member of a group. It may be something that the speaker has already mentioned, or it may be otherwise something uniquely specified.
Example:
"Give me the book." (You want a specific book)
"Give me a book." (Any book will do)
Sometimes, the definite article is used to indicate a specific class:
"The cabbage white butterfly lays its eggs on members of the Brassicagenus."
An indefinite article is an article that marks an indefinite noun phrase. Indefinite articles are those such as English "a" or "an", which do not refer to a specific identifiable entity. Indefinites are commonly used to introduce a new discourse referent which can be referred back to in subsequent discussion:
"A monster ate a cookie. His name is Cookie Monster."
Indefinites can also be used to generalize:
"A cookie is a wonderful thing to eat."
Or to refer to specific but unknown entities:
"A monster must have broken into my house last night and eaten all my cookies."
Indefinites also have predicative uses:
"Leaving my door unlocked was a bad decision."
Articles are found in many Indo-European languages, Semitic languages, Polynesian languages, and even language isolates such as Basque. However, they are formally absent from many of the world's major languages including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Tibetan, many Turkic languages, many Uralic languages, Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi, the Dravidian languages, the Baltic languages, the majority of Slavic languages, and the Bantu languages (including Swahili).
Articles often develop by specialization of adjectives or determiners. Their development is often a sign of languages becoming more analytic instead of synthetic, perhaps combined with the loss of inflection.
This section is kinda under construction, but here's a peek!
Check out this table for how articles vary!
| Language | Definite | Indefinite |
|---|---|---|
| English | the | a, an |
| French | le, la, les | un, une |
| German | der, die, das | ein, eine |
| Spanish | el, la, los, las | un, una |
| Japanese | NOPE! | NOPE! |
Did you know? The definite article "the" is the most frequently used word in World's Englishes! Wicked!
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