A determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

, phrase, or

affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...

that occurs together with a

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...

and generally serves to express the

reference Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a '' name'' ...

of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner may indicate whether the noun is referring to a definite or indefinite element of a class, to a closer or more distant element, to an element belonging to a specified person or thing, to a particular number or quantity, etc. Common kinds of determiners include definite and indefinite articles (''the'', ''a''),

demonstrative Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...

s (''this'', ''that''),

possessive determiner Possessive determiners (from la, possessivus, translit=; grc, κτητικός / ktētikós - en. ktetic Lallu) are determiners which express possession. Some traditional grammars of English refer to them as possessive adjectives, though they d ...

s (''my,'' ''their''), cardinal numerals (''one'', ''two''), quantifiers (''many'', ''both''), distributive determiners (''each'', ''every''), and

interrogative An interrogative clause is a clause whose form is typically associated with question-like meanings. For instance, the English sentence "Is Hannah sick?" has interrogative syntax which distinguishes it from its declarative counterpart "Hannah is ...

determiners (''which'', ''what'').

Description

Most determiners have been traditionally classed either as adjectives or

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...

s, and this still occurs in traditional grammars: for example, demonstrative and possessive determiners are sometimes described as ''demonstrative adjectives'' and ''possessive adjectives'' or as ''(adjectival) demonstrative pronouns'' and ''(adjectival) possessive pronouns'' respectively. These traditional interpretations of determiners are related to some of the linguistic properties of determiners in modern syntax theories, such as deictic information,

definiteness In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical ...

and

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...

. However, modern theorists of

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...

tend to distinguish determiners as a separate

word class In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech ( abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are as ...

from adjectives, which are simple

modifiers In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...

of nouns, expressing attributes of the thing referred to. This distinction applies particularly in languages, such as English, that use definite and indefinite articles frequently as a necessary component of noun phrases—the determiners may then be taken to be a class of words that includes the articles as well as other words that function in the place of articles. (The composition of this class may depend on the particular language's rules of

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituenc ...

; for example, in English the

possessive A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict own ...

s ''my'', ''your'' etc. are used without articles and so can be regarded as determiners, whereas their

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional It ...

equivalents ' etc. are used together with articles and so may be better classed as adjectives.) Not all languages can be said to have a lexically distinct class of determiners. In some languages, the role of certain determiners can be played by

es (prefixes or suffixes) attached to a noun or by other types of

inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...

. For example, definite articles are represented by suffixes in Romanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Swedish. (For example, in Swedish, ' ("book"), when definite, becomes ' ("the book"), while the Romanian ' ("notebook") similarly becomes ''caietul'' ("the notebook").) Some languages, such as Finnish, have

possessive affix In linguistics, a possessive affix (from la, affixum possessivum) is an affix (usually suffix or prefix) attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives. Possessive affixes are found in many languages ...

es, which play the role of possessive determiners like ''my'' and ''his''.

Universal grammar Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory of the genetic component of the language faculty, usually credited to Noam Chomsky. The basic postulate of UG is that there are innate constraints on what the grammar of a possible h ...

is the theory that all humans are born equipped with

, and all languages share certain properties. There are arguments that determiners are not a part of universal grammar and are instead part of an emergent

syntactic category A syntactic category is a syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume. Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the ''phrasal c ...

. This has been shown through the studies of some languages' histories, including Dutch.

Syntactic order

Determiners may be predeterminers, central determiners or postdeterminers, based on the order in which they can occur. For example, "all my many very young children" uses one of each. "My all many very young children" is not grammatically correct because a central determiner cannot precede a predeterminer.

Determiners and pronouns

Determiners are distinguished from

pronouns In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not ...

by the presence of nouns. * Each went his own way. (''Each'' is used as a pronoun, without an accompanying noun.) * Each man went his own way. (''Each'' is used as a determiner, accompanying the noun ''man''.) Plural personal pronouns can act as determiners in certain constructions. * We linguists aren’t stupid. * I'll give you boys three hours to finish the job! * Nobody listens to us students. Some theoreticians unify determiners and

s into a single class. For further information, see .

Articles

Articles are words used (as a standalone word or a prefix or suffix) to specify the grammatical definiteness of a noun, and, in some languages, volume or numerical scope.

Definite article

The definite article in the English language is the word ''the''. It denotes people, places, and things that have already been mentioned, implied, or presumed to be known by the listener.

Indefinite article

The indefinite article takes the forms of ''a'' and ''an'' in English. It is mostly synonymous with ''one'', but the word ''one'' is usually used when emphasizing singularity.

Demonstratives

Demonstrative Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...

s are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are usually

deictic In linguistics, deixis (, ) is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person in context, e.g., the words ''tomorrow'', ''there'', and ''they''. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their d ...

, which means their meaning changes with

context Context may refer to: * Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary Computing * Context (computing), the virtual environment required to s ...

. They can indicate how close the things being referenced are to the speaker, listener, or other group of people. In the English language, demonstratives express proximity of things with respect to the speaker.

Proximal demonstratives

In English, the words ''this'' and ''these'' are the proximal demonstratives. They express that the particular things being mentioned are very close to the speaker.

Distal demonstratives

The distal demonstratives in the English language are ''that'' and ''those''. They express that there is some distance between the things being referenced and the speaker.

Possessive determiner

Possessive determiner Possessive determiners (from la, possessivus, translit=; grc, κτητικός / ktētikós - en. ktetic Lallu) are determiners which express possession. Some traditional grammars of English refer to them as possessive adjectives, though they d ...

s such as ''my'' and ''their'' modify a noun by attributing possession (or other sense of belonging) to someone or something. They are also known as possessive adjectives.

Quantifiers

Quantifiers indicate quantity. Some examples of quantifiers include: ''all'', ''some'', ''many'', ''little'', ''few'', and ''no''. Quantifiers only indicate a general quantity of objects, not a precise number such as ''twelve'', ''dozen'', ''first'', ''single'', or ''once'' (which are considered

numerals A numeral is a figure, symbol, or group of figures or symbols denoting a number. It may refer to: * Numeral system used in mathematics * Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English) * Numerical d ...

Distributive determiners

Distributive determiners, also called distributive adjectives, consider members of a group separately, rather than collectively. Words such as ''each'' and ''every'' are examples of distributive determiners.

Interrogative determiners

Interrogatives are used to ask a question, such as ''which'', ''what.''

As a functional head

Some modern grammatical approaches regard determiners as

head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may not ...

s of their own phrases. In such approaches, noun phrases are generally dominated by determiner phrases whose heads are often

null Null may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Computing * Null (SQL) (or NULL), a special marker and keyword in SQL indicating that something has no value *Null character, the zero-valued ASCII character, also designated by , often used ...

. Noun phrases that contain only a noun and do not have a determiner present are known as bare noun phrases. For more detail on theoretical approaches to the status of determiners, see . Some theoreticians analyze

s as determiners or determiner phrases. See Pronoun: Theoretical considerations. This is consistent with the determiner phrase viewpoint, whereby a determiner, rather than the noun that follows it, is taken to be the head of the phrase.

References

External links

GrammarBank – Determiners Practice

SIL Glossary of linguistic terms – What is a determiner?
{{lexical categories Parts of speech Grammar Syntactic categories Grammatical marker type