Determiners

Determiners include articles (e.g. the, a/an), demonstratives (e.g. this, these, that, those), quantifiers (e.g. all, many, some, any, each), numerals (e.g. one, two, first, second), genitives[6] (e.g. my, your, his, her, its, our, their), interrogatives (e.g. which, what), and exclamatives (e.g. such, what) that modify noun heads in noun phrases.

Determiners function as words that "determine" other nouns, where "determine" is generally conceived of as indicating information about quantification, grammatical (and/or semantic) number, issues involving reference, and noun subclass membership (i.e. count, noncount, and proper noun subclasses). These "determining" functions make determiners quite distinct from adjectival modifiers that generally provide qualitative information about nouns and cannot provide determining functions.

Within the noun phrase, determiners occur at the far left edge of the noun phrase before the noun head and before any optional adjective modifiers (if present):

    Determiner     +     Adjective(s)     +     Noun

Examples follow:

    the     balloon
    det     noun

    many     balloons
    det     noun

    all     balloons
    det     noun

   

    the     big     red     balloon
    det     adj     adj     noun

    many     big     red     balloons
    det     adj     adj     noun

    all     big     red     balloons
    det     adj     adj     noun

The distinctness of the determiner and adjective positions relative to each other and the noun head is demonstrable in that adjectives may never precede determiners. Thus, the following are ungrammatical English nouns phrases: *big the red balloon, *big red the balloon (as well as *big many red balloons, *big red many balloons, *big all red balloons, *big red all balloons).

Determiners can be divided into three subclasses according to their position with respect to each other:

Predeterminers may precede central determiners but may not follow central determiners. Postdeterminers follow central determiners but may not precede them. Central determiners must occur after predeterminers and before postdeterminers. Thus, a central determiner eg the as in

    the     red     balloons
    det     adj     noun

can be preceded by a predeterminer eg all as in

    all     the     red     balloons
    predet     cent.det        
    det     adj     noun

or the central determiner the can be followed by a postdeterminer eg many as in

    the     many     red     balloons
    cent.det     postdet        
    det     adj     noun

A sequence of predeterminer + central determiner + postdeterminer is also possible as in

    all     the     many     red     balloons
    predet     cent.det     postdet        
    det     adj     noun

However, there are several restrictions on combinatory possibilities. One general restriction is that only one determiner can occur in each of the three determiner positions. For example, the postdeterminers many and seven can occur in the following

    many smart children
    seven smart children
    the many smart children
    the seven smart children

but both many and seven cannot occur in postdeterminer position rendering the following noun phrases ungrammatical: *many seven smart children, *seven many smart children, *the many seven smart children, *the seven many smart children. Additionally, there are often other lexical restrictions. For example, the predeterminer all can occur alone (as the sole determiner) or before a central determiner (e.g., all children, all the children, all these children, all my children); however, the predeterminer such can only occur alone or before central determiner a (e.g., such nuisance!, such a nuisance!).

Predeterminers include words eg all, both, half, double, twice, three times, one-third, one-fifth, three-quarters, such, exclamative what. Examples with predeterminers preceding a central determiner:

    all the big balloons
    both his nice parents
    half a minute
    double the risk
    twice my age
    three times my salary
    one-third the cost
    one-fifth the rate
    three-quarters the diameter
    such a big boy
    what a clever suggestion

Central determiners include words eg the, a/an, this, that, these, those, every, each, enough, much, more, most less, no, some, either, neither, which, what.

Examples of central determiners preceding adjectival modified noun heads:

    the big balloon
    a big balloon
    this big balloon
    that big balloon
    these big balloons
    those big balloons
    every big balloon
    each big balloon
    no big balloon
    some big balloons
    either big balloon

While the, a/an, no, and every only function as determiners,[7] the other central determiners can also function as members of other lexical categories, especially as pronouns. For example, that functions as a determiner in

    That item is our belonging.

but as pronoun in

    That is our belonging.

In addition to the above determiners, noun phrases with a genitive enclitic -’s[8] can have a determinative function like genitive determiners his, her, its, their. These genitive determinative noun phrases occur in the central determiner position:

    [ my stepmother’s ] friendly children
    both [ my stepmother’s ] friendly children
    [ my stepmother’s ] many friendly children
    all [ my stepmother’s ] many friendly children

Articles

An article is the word 'a', 'an' or 'the'. ‘A’ is indefinite (e.g., a dog). It is indefinite because it does not refer to a specific entity that is known to the speaker or listener. "The" is definite as it refers to an entity the referent of which is thought to be recoverable to the listener by the speaker.

Articles are words like a/an, and the that modify nouns. They occur in the central determiner position. Articles have several functions including marking definiteness, specific/generic reference, given/new information in discourse, and noun subclass membership (i.e., count, noncount, and proper noun subclasses).

The definite article "the" is used to refer to a specific instance of the noun, often already mentioned in the context or easy to identify. Definite articles are slightly different from demonstratives, which often indicate the location of nouns with respect to the speaker and audience.

    * "Let us look for a good restaurant."
    * "What about the restaurant at which we ate last week?"
    * "That restaurant was terrible. What about this one on the corner here?"

Adjectival modification

Adjectives usually precede the noun, i.e. the blue car, where blue is the adjective. However, some adjectives such as lyonnaise, succeed the noun (i.e., the potatoes lyonnaise). When an adjective follows the noun in English, the phrase as a whole is usually a borrowing from a Romance language, typically French.