An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. The three main articles in the English language are the, an and a. An article is sometimes called a noun marker, although this is generally considered to be an archaic term.
It is sometimes wondered which part of speech articles belong to. Despite much speculation, articles are adjectives, as they do describe nouns; Linguists place them in a different category, that of determiners
Articles can have various functions:
A definite article (English the) is used before singular and plural nouns that refer to a particular member of a group.
Example: The cat is on the black mat.
An indefinite article (English a, an) is used before singular nouns that refer to any member of a group.
Example: A cat is a mammal.
A partitive article indicates an indefinite quantity of a mass noun ; there is no partitive article in English, though the words some or any often have that function.
A zero article is the absence of an article (e.g. English indefinite plural), used in some languages in contrast with the presence of one. Linguists interested in X-bar theory causally link zero articles to nouns lacking a determiner.[citation needed ]
Example: Cats are mammals.
Logic of definite articles:
In English , a definite article is mostly used to refer to an object or person that has been previously introduced.
For example: At last they came to a piece of rising ground, from which they plainly distinguished, sleeping on a distant mountain, a mammoth bear.... Then they requested the eldest to try and slip the belt over the bear's head. - Mark Twain , Life on the Mississippi
In this example, a bear becomes the bear because a "mammoth bear" had been previously introduced into the narrative, and no other bear was involved in the story. Only previously introduced subjects like "the bear" or unique subjects, where the speaker can assume that the audience is aware of the identity of the referent (The heart has its reasons) typically take definite articles in English.
By contrast, the indefinite article is used in situations where a new subject is being introduced, and the speaker assumes that the hearer is not yet familiar with the subject:
Example: There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
- A traditional nursery rhyme
Reflecting its historical derivation from the number word one , the English indefinite article can only be used with singular count nouns . For mass nouns, or for plurals, adjectives or adjective phrases like some or a few substitute for it. In English, pronouns , nouns already having another non-number determiner , and proper nouns usually do not use articles. Otherwise in English, unlike many other languages, singular count nouns take an article; either a, an, or the.
Also in English word order, articles precede any adjectives which modify the applicable noun.[citation needed ]
The word the is the only definite article of the English language . The is the most common word in the English language.
The article the is often used as the very first part of a noun phrase in English(Not, for example, in Time flies or My time is up or Some time ago)
For example: The end of time begins now.
Here "the end of time" is a noun phrase. The use of the signals that the reference is to a specific and unique instance of the concept (such as person, object, or idea) expressed in the noun phrase. Here, the implication is that there is one end of time, and that it has arrived.
The time is 3:29 PM.
There are many times, but the meaning here is the time now, of which (at the moment the sentence was produced) there is only one.
