Mohamad Nizar, mohamadnizar66@gmail.com. Institut Teknologi Nasional, https://www.itenas.ac.

id/

DETERMINERS
(An Introduction to the Study of Nouns in English Syntax)

I. Introduction
Studying determiners, it is certain that a learner is studying groups of nouns and nouns.
Noun groups are linguistic constituents in sentence structures that occupy the positions of subject,
object, subject complement, and preposition complement. The noun in the positional noun group
structure is the main (head) and the determiner marks the meaning of the noun or is also called a
noun marker, modifier1 as a limiter or one that limits, expands, or characterizes the headword in a
phrase; and complements also semantically expand the meaning of a noun. Newson et.al. (2004:
6-10) states that there is a typology of word categories in English, namely types of thematic
categories and functional categories. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions are types of
thematic categories. The types of function categories are inflection, determiner, degree adverb, and
complementiser. In a speech, each word has a category (thematic or functional) that becomes a
syntactical concern. An English noun group structure consists of four basic elements, namely the
head, determiner, modifier or marker (epithet and classifier), and complement.
Only determiners are discussed at this time, but the others will be presented in several
separate articles. Here are linguistic symbols to make reading easier:

|…| form of word

+ morpheme boundary
{…} grammatical element
… intermission
* ungrammatical or unacceptable
Ø zero

II. The Role of Determiners

The determiner is a pre-head dependency element which functions to identify the head
(headword) deictically2 or also as numeral. The determiner is in the noun group and marks the
meaning of the noun or is also called a noun marker. Thus, it can be described in five types of
determiners, they are articles |a| / |an| and |the|, demonstratives, possessives and their groups,
numerals, general determiners (indefinite determiners). Some of these determiners can be
pronouns. Some of these determiners can be pronouns, which in one group of nouns may or may
not contain more than one determiner. Five types of determiners are collected in the English noun

1
A modifier is an element that limits, expands, or characterizes a head in a phrase; in a nominal phrase it is shown
with an adjective, adjective phrase, preposition, prepositional phrase, or dependent clause; in verbal phrases it is
shown with adverbs or adverbial phrases.
2
A deictic expression or deixis is a word or phrase (such as this, that, these, those, now, then, here) that points to the
time, place, or situation in which a speaker is speaking. Deixis is expressed in English by way of personal
pronouns, demonstratives, adverbs, and tense (https://www.thoughtco.com/deictic-expression-deixis-1690428),
[23.1.2024] .
 group, consisting of pre-determiners, central determiners and post-determiners. The next group of
nouns are modifiers, heads, and complements, as shown in the Table.

Table: Scheme of the English Noun Group

Pre-determiner Central Post-determiner Modifier Head Complement
determiner
all a/an one, two,... - Adjectives - Nouns - some
both the first, - Nouns - Clauses adjectives
double this, that,... second,... - NGs
such my, your, next - PGs
what his,... last - Clauses
half every past
two-fifths each further
no many
some (a) few
any several
enough more
either much
neither little
what plenty of
whose loads of
which
wh + ever
Peter’s
Source: https://www.ugr.es/~ftsaez/morfo/nouns.pdf [23.1.2024]

III. Pre-determiners
The examples start from the pre-determiners which precede other determiners in a noun
group. The pre-determiner generally expresses a proportion of nouns, including as a multiplier,
such as |double|, |three times|, |twice|, |four times|. This type of pre-determiner appears in plural
nouns and mass nouns, as well as singular count nouns which indicate numbers, amounts, and so
on. The pre-determiner |three|, |four|, etc. |times| consists of the open-class3 item times, and is thus
not a proper closed-category pre-modifier. The structure is {multiplier + article / possessive +
plural noun/ mass noun/ singular count noun} as in (1), (2), (3), and (4). The pre-modifiers
|double|, |twice|, |three times|, etc. have no analogue with |of|-construction, *double of the amount
(Quirk et al, 1972: 140-142).

(1) double their sallaries

(2) three times the jars
(3) twice the honor
(4) four times my fee

The next pre-determiner is a fraction, such as |one-third| etc. The structure is {fraction +
article / possessive + noun} as in (5), (6), and (7) and have the alternative |of|-construction, He did

3
Open class also open set: a group of words (a word class), which contains an unlimited number of items. Nouns,
verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are open-class words. New words can be added to these classes, e.g. |laser|, |e-
commerce|, |chatroom|. The word classes conjunctions, prepositions, and pronouns consist of relatively few words,
and new words are not usually added to them. These are called closed classes, or closed sets.
it in one-third (of) the time it took me. The pre-determiner expresses a distributive4 |all|, |both| and
|half|. The structure is {|all| + article/possessive + singular count noun/plural count noun/mass
count} as in (8) to (10), unless |all| and |both|, {|all| / |both| + Ø article + plural count noun}: all/both
pens. The pre-determiners |all|, |both|, |half| have |of| -constructions, which are optional with nouns

(5) one-third (of) the width

(6) two-thirds (of) my salary
(7) two-fifths (of) the width

(8) all (of) a life

(9) all (of) pens
(10) half (of) my ink
and obligatory with personal pronouns (Jacobs, 1995: 98). These pre-determiners can thus occur
only before articles or demonstratives but, for obvious semantic reasons, none of them can occur
with the following 'quantitative' determiners: |every, |(n)either|, |each|, |some|, |any|, |no|, |enough|.
These have restrictions on co-occurrence with determiners and noun heads, as is shown in Fig 1,
and for a broader explanation, see Quirk (1975: 140-141).

Fig 1: The Pre-determiner |all|, |both| and |half|

SINGULAR COUNT NOUNS MASS NOUNS

half a pen
this, that life half the, my, …
this, that
ink

all the, my, …

life
all Ø article

PLURAL COUNT NOUNS

the, my, …
half these, those

pens
all
Ø article
both

Source: Quirk et.al., (1972:140)

The next pre-determiners are exclamatives5, |what| and |such| which has the structure
{|what| + article + noun} as in (11) and |such| in the structure {|such| + article |a| / |an| + noun} in
(12) and (13). The pre-determiner exclamative |such a(n)| is used in place of |such| if the head of

4
All positions occupied by language elements; the range of positions in which a particular unit of a language, e.g. a
phoneme or a word, can occur is called its distribution.
5
An utterance which shows the speaker’s or writer’s feelings. Exclamations begin with a phrase using |what| or |how|
but they do not reverse the order of the subject and the auxiliary verb: How clever she is!, What a good dog!; an
utterance, which may not have the structure of a full sentence, and which shows strong emotion. For example: Good
God! or Damn!
 the noun phrase is a singular countable noun, unless such is itself pre-modified (|some such|, |any
such|). For further information, see Quirk (1975: 407, 703-706, 927).

(11) What a wonderful world!

(12) Such a bad man!
(13) Such an honour!

IV. Central Determiners

The central determiners are positioned in combination with a pre-determiner before or post-
determiner. They are articles, possessives and demonstratives. The article |the| has the structure
{quantifier-(|of|) + definite article |the| + singular, plural count noun or mass count} as in (14) to
(16). General article (indefinite article), |a| / |an| has the structure {quantifier-(|of|) + indefinite
article |a| / |an| + singular count noun} as in (17) and (18). The possessive central determiner with
the structure {quantifier-(|of|) + possessive + noun} appears in (19) to (21). Demonstrative central
determiners have the structure {quantifier-(|of|) + demonstrative |this| / |that| + mass count noun /
singular count noun} seems in (22) and (23), but in (24) and (25) have the structure {quantifier-
(|of|) + demonstrative |these| / |those| + plural count noun}.

(14) all (of) the life

(15) both (of) the two students
(16) half (of) the fatty meat

(17) half (of) a beautiful life

(18) half (of) an unpleasant journey

(19) two-third (of) his second salary

(20) all (of) her new salary
(21) three times (of) my last salary

(22) one-third of this heavy load

(23) half of that old book
(24) all these literary books
(25) all those polar bears

V. Post-determiners
The post-determiner consists of a numeral and a quantifier which is positioned after the
pre-determinator with/without a central determiner after it. Numerals are words or phrases that
indicate numbers or quantities. A quantifier is a word that changes the meaning of another word
and expresses quantity. Ordinals include the ordinal numbers (|first|, |second|, |third|, etc), see (26)
and (27), as well as |(an)other|, |next|, and |last| in (28) to (30). These words are post-determiners,
ie they must follow determiners in noun-phrase structure, but they precede quantifiers and
adjectives. There appear to be two kinds of patterning (see Fig 2). Ordinal numbers |first|, |next|,
|last|, and |another| (in addition) can, optionally, co-occur with ordinal numerals and |few| before
plural count nouns, whereas |second|, |third|, and the other ordinals which cannot be followed by
 any quantifiers modify singular count nouns (Quirk at al, 1972:143). Cardinal numbers post-
determiners are |two|, |three|, |four|, etc (with plural count nouns) in 31.

Fig 2: The Ordinal and Cardinal Post-determiners

(Yellow indicates post-determiners and dotted lines indicate optional items)

this, that
second, month
(singular)
third, (singular)
…
the, my, …
(singular or plural) first,
next,
last,
these, those other two,
(plural) three,
… months
few (plural)
another
Source: Quirk et al, 1972:143

(26) the first class

(27) the fourth floor

(28) another city

(29) the next chapter
(30) the last moment
(31) all (the) four brothers

VI. Conclusion
The determiners are particles and cannot be derived or inflected. They have a function like
definite or indefinite reference or to provide information about quantity and proportion which only
have grammatical meaning and do not contain certain lexical meaning. The Determiner words are
in noun phrases and as have been shown that they can cluster together. The combinations are quite
complicated. The noun, the head of the phrase, is introduced by a complex determiner consisting
of three determiner words and the proposition |of|. The number and range of combinations allowed
depends primarily on the type of head noun in the noun phrase. Pre-determiners are unique among
the pre-modifiers in occurring before the determiners. Cardinal numbers post-determiners are
|two|, |three|, |four|, etc (with plural count nouns), except |one| (with singular count nouns) must be
investigated and discussed again.

Works Cited
Jacobs, Roderick A. 1995. English Syntax: A Grammar for English Language Professionals.
Oxford University Press.
Newson, et.al. 2004. Basic English Sintax with Exercise. [accessed December 15, 2023].
http://primus.arts.u-szeged.hu/bese/contents.htm
Quirk, Randolf, et al. 1980. A Grammar of Contemporary English. Longman Group Ltd.