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.

In English, both "the" and "a(n)" are articles, which combine with nouns to form noun
phrases. Articles typically specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun phrase,
but in many languages, they carry additional grammatical information such
as gender, number, and case. Articles are part of a broader category
called determiners, which also include demonstratives, possessive determiners,
and quantIn 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.

In English, both "the" and "a(n)" are articles, which combine with nouns to form noun
phrases. Articles typically specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun phrase,
but in many languages, they carry additional grammatical information such
as gender, number, and case. Articles are part of a broader category
called determiners, which also include demonstratives, possessive determiners,
and quantifiers. In linguistic interlinear glossing, articles are abbreviated as ART.

Types of article
[edit]
Definite article
[edit]
"Definite article" redirects here. For the comedy album, see Definite Article.
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.

For example, Sentence 1 uses the definite article and thus, expresses a request for
a particular book. In contrast, Sentence 2 uses an indefinite article and thus, conveys
that the speaker would be satisfied with any book.

1. Give me the book.

2. Give me a book.
The definite article can also be used in English to indicate a specific class among
other classes:

The cabbage white butterfly lays its eggs on members of the Brassica genus.
However, recent developments show that definite articles are morphological
elements linked to certain noun types due to lexicalization. Under this point of
view, definiteness does not play a role in the selection of a definite article more
than the lexical entry attached to the article.[clarification needed][1][2]

Some languages (such as the continental North Germanic

languages, Bulgarian or Romanian) have definite articles only as suffixes.
Indefinite article
[edit]
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:

1. A monster ate a cookie. His name is Cookie Monster.

Indefinites can also be used to generalize over entities who have some property
in common:

1. A cookie is a wonderful thing to eat.

Indefinites can also be used to refer to specific entities whose precise identity is
unknown or unimportant.

1. A monster must have broken into my house last night and eaten all
my cookies.
2. A friend of mine told me that happens frequently to people who live
on Sesame Street.
Indefinites also have predicative uses:

1. Leaving my door unlocked was a bad decision.

Indefinite noun phrases are widely studied within linguistics, in particular because
of their ability to take exceptional scope.

Proper article
[edit]
A proper article indicates that its noun is proper, and refers to a unique entity. It
may be the name of a person, the name of a place, the name of a planet, etc.
The Māori language has the proper article a, which is used for personal nouns;
so, "a Pita" means "Peter". In Māori, when the personal nouns have the definite
or indefinite article as an important part of it, both articles are present; for
example, the phrase "a Te Rauparaha", which contains both the proper
article a and the definite article Te refers to the person name Te Rauparaha.

The definite article is sometimes also used with proper names, which are already
specified by definition (there is just one of them). For example: the Amazon, the
Hebrides. In these cases, the definite article may be considered superfluous. Its
presence can be accounted for by the assumption that they are shorthand for a
longer phrase in which the name is a specifier, i.e. the Amazon River, the
Hebridean Islands.[citation needed] Where the nouns in such longer phrases cannot be
omitted, the definite article is universally kept: the United States, the People's
Republic of China.

This distinction can sometimes become a political matter: the former usage the
Ukraine stressed the word's Russian meaning of "borderlands";
as Ukraine became a fully independent state following the collapse of the Soviet
Union, it requested that formal mentions of its name omit the article. Similar shifts
in usage have occurred in the names of Sudan and both Congo
(Brazzaville) and Congo (Kinshasa); a move in the other direction occurred
with The Gambia. In certain languages, such as French and Italian, definite
articles are used with all or most names of countries: la France, le
Canada, l'Allemagne; l'Italia, la Spagna, il Brasile.

If a name [has] a definite article, e.g. the Kremlin, it cannot idiomatically be used
without it: we cannot say Boris Yeltsin is in Kremlin.

— R. W. Burchfield[3]
Some languages use definite articles with personal names, as in Portuguese (a
Maria, literally: "the Maria"), Greek (η Μαρία, ο Γιώργος, ο Δούναβης, η
Παρασκευή), and Catalan (la Núria, el/en Oriol). Such usage also occurs
colloquially or dialectally in Spanish, German, French, Italian and other
languages. In Hungarian, the colloquial use of definite articles with personal
names, though widespread, is considered to be a Germanism.

The definite article sometimes appears in American English nicknames such as

"the Donald", referring to former president Donald Trump, and "the Gipper",
referring to former president Ronald Reagan.[4]

Partitive article
[edit]
A partitive article is a type of article, sometimes viewed as a type of indefinite
article, used with a mass noun such as water, to indicate a non-specific quantity
of it. Partitive articles are a class of determiner; they are used
in French and Italian in addition to definite and indefinite articles.
(In Finnish and Estonian, the partitive is indicated by inflection.) The nearest
equivalent in English is some, although it is classified as a determiner, and
English uses it less than French uses de.

French: Veux-tu du café ?

Do you want (some) coffee?
For more information, see the article on the French partitive article.
Haida has a partitive article (suffixed -gyaa) referring to "part of
something or... to one or more objects of a given group or category,"
e.g., tluugyaa uu hal tlaahlaang "he is making a boat (a member of the
category of boats)."[5]

Negative article
[edit]
A negative article specifies none of its noun, and can thus be
regarded as neither definite nor indefinite. On the other hand, some
consider such a word to be a simple determiner rather than an article.
In English, this function is fulfilled by no, which can appear before a
singular or plural noun:
No man has been on this island.
No dogs are allowed here.
No one is in the room.
In German, the negative article is, among other
variations, kein, in opposition to the indefinite article ein.

Ein Hund – a dog

Kein Hund – no dog
The equivalent in Dutch is geen:

een hond – a dog

geen hond – no dog
Zero article
[edit]
See also: Zero article in English
The zero article is the absence of an article.
In languages having a definite article, the
lack of an article specifically indicates that
the noun is indefinite. Linguists interested
in X-bar theory causally link zero articles to
nouns lacking a determiner.[6] In English, the
zero article rather than the indefinite is used
with plurals and mass nouns, although the
word "some" can be used as an indefinite
plural article.

Visitors end up walking in mud.

Crosslinguistic
variation
[edit]
Articles in languages in and around Europe
indefinite and definite articles
only definite articles
indefinite and suffixed definite articles
only suffixed definite articles
no articles
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, M
ongolian, Tibetan, many Turkic
languages (including Tatar, Bashkir, Tuv
an and Chuvash), many Uralic
languages (incl. Finnic[a] and Saami
languages), Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi,
the Dravidian
languages (incl. Tamil, Telugu,
and Kannada), the Baltic languages, the
majority of Slavic languages, the Bantu
languages (incl. Swahili). In some
languages that do have articles, such as
some North Caucasian languages, the
use of articles is optional; however, in
others like English and German it is
mandatory in all cases.
Linguists believe the common ancestor of
the Indo-European languages, Proto-
Indo-European, did not have articles.
Most of the languages in this family do
not have definite or indefinite articles:
there is no article in Latin or Sanskrit, nor
in some modern Indo-European
languages, such as the families of Slavic
languages (except
for Bulgarian and Macedonian, which are
rather distinctive among the Slavic
languages in their grammar, and some
Northern Russian dialects[7]), Baltic
languages and many Indo-Aryan
languages. Although Classical Greek had
a definite article (which has survived
into Modern Greek and which bears
strong functional resemblance to the
German definite article, which it is related
to), the earlier Homeric Greek used this
article largely as a pronoun or
demonstrative, whereas the earliest
known form of Greek known
as Mycenaean Greek did not have any
articles. Articles developed independently
in several language families.

Not all languages have both definite and

indefinite articles, and some languages
have different types of definite and
indefinite articles to distinguish finer
shades of meaning: for
example, French and Italian have a
partitive article used for indefinite mass
nouns, whereas Colognian has two
distinct sets of definite articles indicating
focus and uniqueness,
and Macedonian uses definite articles in
a demonstrative sense, with a tripartite
distinction (proximal, medial, distal)
based on distance from the speaker or
interlocutor. The words this and that (and
their plurals, these and those) can be
understood in English as, ultimately,
forms of the definite article the (whose
declension in Old English included thaes,
an ancestral form of this/that and
these/those).
 In many languages, the form of the article
may vary according to
the gender, number, or case of its noun.
In some languages the article may be the
only indication of the case. Many
languages do not use articles at all, and
may use other ways of indicating old
versus new information, such as topic–
comment constructions.

ifiers. In linguistic interlinear glossing, articles are abbreviated as ART.

Types of article
[edit]
Definite article
[edit]
"Definite article" redirects here. For the comedy album, see Definite Article.
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.

For example, Sentence 1 uses the definite article and thus, expresses a request for
a particular book. In contrast, Sentence 2 uses an indefinite article and thus, conveys
that the speaker would be satisfied with any book.

1. Give me the book.

2. Give me a book.
The definite article can also be used in English to indicate a specific class among
other classes:

The cabbage white butterfly lays its eggs on members of the Brassica genus.
However, recent developments show that definite articles are morphological
elements linked to certain noun types due to lexicalization. Under this point of
view, definiteness does not play a role in the selection of a definite article more
than the lexical entry attached to the article.[clarification needed][1][2]

Some languages (such as the continental North Germanic

languages, Bulgarian or Romanian) have definite articles only as suffixes.

Indefinite article
[edit]
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:
 1. A monster ate a cookie. His name is Cookie Monster.
Indefinites can also be used to generalize over entities who have some property
in common:

1. A cookie is a wonderful thing to eat.

Indefinites can also be used to refer to specific entities whose precise identity is
unknown or unimportant.

1. A monster must have broken into my house last night and eaten all
my cookies.
2. A friend of mine told me that happens frequently to people who live
on Sesame Street.
Indefinites also have predicative uses:

1. Leaving my door unlocked was a bad decision.

Indefinite noun phrases are widely studied within linguistics, in particular because
of their ability to take exceptional scope.

Proper article
[edit]
A proper article indicates that its noun is proper, and refers to a unique entity. It
may be the name of a person, the name of a place, the name of a planet, etc.
The Māori language has the proper article a, which is used for personal nouns;
so, "a Pita" means "Peter". In Māori, when the personal nouns have the definite
or indefinite article as an important part of it, both articles are present; for
example, the phrase "a Te Rauparaha", which contains both the proper
article a and the definite article Te refers to the person name Te Rauparaha.

The definite article is sometimes also used with proper names, which are already
specified by definition (there is just one of them). For example: the Amazon, the
Hebrides. In these cases, the definite article may be considered superfluous. Its
presence can be accounted for by the assumption that they are shorthand for a
longer phrase in which the name is a specifier, i.e. the Amazon River, the
Hebridean Islands.[citation needed] Where the nouns in such longer phrases cannot be
omitted, the definite article is universally kept: the United States, the People's
Republic of China.

This distinction can sometimes become a political matter: the former usage the
Ukraine stressed the word's Russian meaning of "borderlands";
as Ukraine became a fully independent state following the collapse of the Soviet
Union, it requested that formal mentions of its name omit the article. Similar shifts
in usage have occurred in the names of Sudan and both Congo
(Brazzaville) and Congo (Kinshasa); a move in the other direction occurred
with The Gambia. In certain languages, such as French and Italian, definite
articles are used with all or most names of countries: la France, le
Canada, l'Allemagne; l'Italia, la Spagna, il Brasile.
If a name [has] a definite article, e.g. the Kremlin, it cannot idiomatically be used
without it: we cannot say Boris Yeltsin is in Kremlin.

— R. W. Burchfield[3]
Some languages use definite articles with personal names, as in Portuguese (a
Maria, literally: "the Maria"), Greek (η Μαρία, ο Γιώργος, ο Δούναβης, η
Παρασκευή), and Catalan (la Núria, el/en Oriol). Such usage also occurs
colloquially or dialectally in Spanish, German, French, Italian and other
languages. In Hungarian, the colloquial use of definite articles with personal
names, though widespread, is considered to be a Germanism.

The definite article sometimes appears in American English nicknames such as

"the Donald", referring to former president Donald Trump, and "the Gipper",
referring to former president Ronald Reagan.[4]

Partitive article
[edit]
A partitive article is a type of article, sometimes viewed as a type of indefinite
article, used with a mass noun such as water, to indicate a non-specific quantity
of it. Partitive articles are a class of determiner; they are used
in French and Italian in addition to definite and indefinite articles.
(In Finnish and Estonian, the partitive is indicated by inflection.) The nearest
equivalent in English is some, although it is classified as a determiner, and
English uses it less than French uses de.

French: Veux-tu du café ?

Do you want (some) coffee?
For more information, see the article on the French partitive article.
Haida has a partitive article (suffixed -gyaa) referring to "part of
something or... to one or more objects of a given group or category,"
e.g., tluugyaa uu hal tlaahlaang "he is making a boat (a member of the
category of boats)."[5]

Negative article
[edit]
A negative article specifies none of its noun, and can thus be
regarded as neither definite nor indefinite. On the other hand, some
consider such a word to be a simple determiner rather than an article.
In English, this function is fulfilled by no, which can appear before a
singular or plural noun:

No man has been on this island.

No dogs are allowed here.
No one is in the room.
In German, the negative article is, among other
variations, kein, in opposition to the indefinite article ein.
Ein Hund – a dog
Kein Hund – no dog
The equivalent in Dutch is geen:

een hond – a dog

geen hond – no dog
Zero article
[edit]
See also: Zero article in English
The zero article is the absence of an article.
In languages having a definite article, the
lack of an article specifically indicates that
the noun is indefinite. Linguists interested
in X-bar theory causally link zero articles to
nouns lacking a determiner.[6] In English, the
zero article rather than the indefinite is used
with plurals and mass nouns, although the
word "some" can be used as an indefinite
plural article.

Visitors end up walking in mud.

Crosslinguistic
variation
[edit]

Articles in languages in and around Europe

indefinite and definite articles
only definite articles
indefinite and suffixed definite articles
 only suffixed definite articles
no articles
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, M
ongolian, Tibetan, many Turkic
languages (including Tatar, Bashkir, Tuv
an and Chuvash), many Uralic
languages (incl. Finnic[a] and Saami
languages), Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi,
the Dravidian
languages (incl. Tamil, Telugu,
and Kannada), the Baltic languages, the
majority of Slavic languages, the Bantu
languages (incl. Swahili). In some
languages that do have articles, such as
some North Caucasian languages, the
use of articles is optional; however, in
others like English and German it is
mandatory in all cases.

Linguists believe the common ancestor of

the Indo-European languages, Proto-
Indo-European, did not have articles.
Most of the languages in this family do
not have definite or indefinite articles:
there is no article in Latin or Sanskrit, nor
in some modern Indo-European
languages, such as the families of Slavic
languages (except
for Bulgarian and Macedonian, which are
rather distinctive among the Slavic
languages in their grammar, and some
Northern Russian dialects[7]), Baltic
languages and many Indo-Aryan
languages. Although Classical Greek had
a definite article (which has survived
into Modern Greek and which bears
strong functional resemblance to the
German definite article, which it is related
to), the earlier Homeric Greek used this
article largely as a pronoun or
demonstrative, whereas the earliest
known form of Greek known
as Mycenaean Greek did not have any
articles. Articles developed independently
in several language families.

Not all languages have both definite and

indefinite articles, and some languages
have different types of definite and
indefinite articles to distinguish finer
shades of meaning: for
example, French and Italian have a
partitive article used for indefinite mass
nouns, whereas Colognian has two
distinct sets of definite articles indicating
focus and uniqueness,
and Macedonian uses definite articles in
a demonstrative sense, with a tripartite
distinction (proximal, medial, distal)
based on distance from the speaker or
interlocutor. The words this and that (and
their plurals, these and those) can be
understood in English as, ultimately,
forms of the definite article the (whose
declension in Old English included thaes,
an ancestral form of this/that and
these/those).

In many languages, the form of the article

may vary according to
the gender, number, or case of its noun.
In some languages the article may be the
only indication of the case. Many
languages do not use articles at all, and
may use other ways of indicating old
versus new information, such as topic–
comment constructions.