Articles
What are Articles?
• Articles are words used to qualify nouns.
• ‘The’, ‘A’ and ‘An’ are the articles used inEnglish.
• Articles do not have meanings of their own, but their presence or absence
affects the significance of nouns insentences.
• They appear before nouns and function in a way similar to adjectives;
they are, in fact, demonstrativeadjectives.
Let us look at a few examples:
• Thebridge
• A blue-feathered smallbird
• An amazing, unbelievable, awe-inspiringinstance
In the above examples, we see that the articles are used immediately before a noun in the first case; before two adjectives and
a noun in the second case; and before three adjectives and a noun in the third case. Therefore, we can say that an article may
sometimes be used before a noun or sometimes be separated from the noun by adjectives.
Types of Articles
The Definite Article
• With superlativeadjectives
• Withadjectives
In such cases, the adjective functions like a noun.
• The greedywill never besatisfied.
• Paradise is reserved for thebrave.
• The goodwill never lose to theevil.
• With surnames, to represent the wholefamily
• The Guptaswill be visiting ustomorrow.
• The Folgerswere in ahurry.
• The Subramaniumsare ourneighbours
• Before musicalinstruments
• He can play theflute.
• The band played thetrumpet.
• Mr Woods plays the violinbeautifully.
Indefinite Articles
• ‘A’ and ‘An’ are indefinite articles. They are usedto
• Refer to nouns which are not specific orcertain
Differences between ‘A’ and ‘An’
• The articles ‘A’ and ‘An’ are similar infunction.
• That is, they both qualify nouns that areuncertain.
• However, ‘A’ precedes nouns that begin with consonantsounds.
• The article ‘An’ precedes nouns that begin with vowel sounds.
Using ‘An’
‘An’ is used
•With nouns which begin with vowelsounds
o Anant
o Anelephant
o Anantelope
• With nouns which may begin with a consonant letter but may have a vowelsound
• An honestperson
• An heir to thethrone
• Anhour
• With abbreviations which begin with a vowelsound
• AnFIR
• AnMBA
• An NYUgraduate
• Sometimes, words which begin with the letter ‘H’ may be pronounced without stressing
on thefirst syllable (pronounced istoricinstead of historic). In such cases, ‘An’ is used as anarticle.
• An historicepisode
• Anhotel
Nouns without Articles
Sometimes, articles are not used with nouns. Articles are not used
• When the noun is used in a universal sense. It could represent all of itskind.
• Childis the father ofman.
• Manis a socialanimal.
• Before the names of materialnouns
• Copperis used for makingwires.
• Teais plucked from itsshrub.
• Silveris used for makingornaments
• While using proper nouns which are names of people orplaces
• Kalais a fantasticdancer.
• Beirutis the capital ofLebanon.
• Romaniais a European country