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In grammar, an article is any of a small set of words or affixes (such as a, an, and the in English) used with to limit or give definiteness to the application. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. These words represent a specific object, depending on the situation, but a is less specific than the.
Articles combine with nouns to form noun phrases, and typically specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun phrase. English articles, the and a (rendered as an when followed by a vowel sound) are the definite and indefinite articles respectively. Articles in many other languages also carry additional grammatical information such as gender, number, and grammatical case. Articles are part of a broader category called , which also include demonstratives, possessive determiners, and quantifiers. In linguistic interlinear glossing, articles are abbreviated as .
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.
The definite article can also be used in English to indicate a specific class among other classes:
Some languages (such as the continental North Germanic languages, Bulgarian or Romanian) have definite articles only as .
Indefinites can also be used to generalize over entities who have some property in common:
Indefinites can also be used to refer to specific entities whose precise identity is unknown or unimportant.
Indefinites also have predicative uses:
Indefinite noun phrases are widely studied within linguistics, in particular because of their ability to take exceptional scope.
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. 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.
Some languages use definite articles with , as in Portuguese (a Maria, literally: "the Maria"), Greek language (italic=no, italic=no, italic=no, italic=no), and Catalan language (la Núria, el/en Oriol). Such usage also occurs colloquially or dialectally in Spanish language, German language, French language, Italian language and other languages. In Hungarian, the colloquial use of definite articles with personal names, though widespread, is considered a Germanism.
The definite article sometimes appears in American English nicknames such as "the Donald", referring to current president Donald Trump, and "the Gipper", referring to former president Ronald Reagan. The definite article also appears as part of a nickname in Shakespeare’s King Henry IV, Act IV, Scene I: “Such attribution should the Douglas have...”.
Haida language 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)."
In German language, the negative article is, among other variations, kein, in opposition to the indefinite article ein.
The equivalent in Dutch language is geen:
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 See s.5 Summary. Retrieved 2 February 2012.), Baltic languages and many Indo-Aryan languages. Although Ancient Greek Greek language 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 language and Italian language have a partitive article used for indefinite , 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 grammatical 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.
| + Variations of articles in definiteness and inflection among major languages ! ! style="width: 20%" | Definite ! style="width: 20%" | Indefinite ! style="width: 20%" | Gendered ! style="width: 20%" | Numbered ! style="width: 20%" | Case-inflected |
| + The articles used in some languages | |||
| Abkhaz language | a- | -k | |
| Afrikaans | die | ||
| Albanian | -a, -ja, -i, -ri, -ni, -u, -t, -in, -un, -n, -rin, -nin, -në, -ën, -s, -së, -ës, -të, -it, -ët (all suffixes) | disa | një |
| Arabic language | or el rtl=yes (prefix) | -n | |
| Armenian | -ը -ë (inbetween consonants), -ն -n (elsewhere) | մի mi | |
| Assamese | -tû, -ta, -ti, -khôn, -khini, -zôn, -zôni, -dal, -zûpa etc. | êta, êkhôn, êzôn, êzôni, êdal, êzûpa etc. | |
| Bengali language | -টা, -টি, -গুলো, -রা, -খানা (-ṭa, -ṭi, -gulo, -ra, -khana) | একটি, একটা, কোন (ekôṭi, ekôṭa, konô) | |
| Breton language | an, al, ar | un, ul, ur | |
| Bulgarian | -та, -то, -а, -ът, -я, -ят, -те (all suffixes) | няколко | един/ някакъв, една/ някаква, едно/ някакво, едни/ някакви |
| Catalan language | el, la, l', els, les ses, lo, los, es, sa | un, una uns, unes | |
| Cornish language | an | ||
| Danish language | Singular: -en, -n -et, -t (all suffixes) Plural: -ene, -ne (all suffixes) | en, et | |
| Dutch language | de, het ('t); archaic since 1945/46 but still used in names and idioms: des, der, den | een ('n) | |
| English articles | the | a, an | |
| Esperanto | la | ||
| Faroese language | -(i)n, -(i)ð, -(i)na, -num, -(i)ni, -(i)ns, -(i)nnar, -nir, -nar, -(u)num, -nna (all suffixes) | ein, eitt, eina, einum, ein(ar)i, eins, einnar, einir, einar, eini, einna | |
| Finnish language (colloquial) | se | yks(i) | |
| French articles | le, la, l', les | de, d', du, de la, des, de l' | un, une, des |
| German articles | der, die, das des, dem, den | ein, eine, einer, eines einem, einen | |
| Greek language | ο, η, το οι, οι, τα | ένας, μια, ένα | |
| Hawaiian | ka, ke nā | he | |
| Hebrew language | (prefix) | ||
| Hungarian | a, az | egy | |
| Icelandic | -(i)nn, -(i)n, -(i)ð, -(i)na, -num, -(i)nni, -nu, -(i)ns, -(i)nnar, -nir, -nar, -(u)num, -nna (all suffixes) | ||
| Interlingua | le | un | |
| Irish language | an, na, a' (used colloquially) | ||
| Italian | il, lo, la, l' i, gli, le | del, dello, della, dell' dei, degli, degl', delle | un, uno, una, un' |
| Khasi language | u, ka, i ki | ||
| Central Kurdish | -eke -ekan | hendê, birrê | -êk -anêk |
| Latin | |||
| Luxembourgish | den, déi (d'), dat (d') dem, der | däers/es, däer/er | en, eng engem, enger |
| Macedonian | -от -ов -он -та -ва -на -то -во -но -те -ве -не -та -ва -на (all suffixes) | неколку | еден една едно едни |
| Manx Gaelic | y, yn, 'n, ny | ||
| Malay language and Indonesian | -nya (colloquial), before names: si (usually informal), sang (more formal) | se- (+ classifiers) | |
| Māori | te (singular), ngā (plural) | he (also for "some") | |
| Maltese language | (i)l-, (i)ċ-, (i)d-, (i)n-, (i)r-, (i)s-, (i)t-, (i)x-, (i)z-, (i)ż- (all prefixes) | ||
| Nepali language | euta, euti, ek, anek, kunai एउटा, एउटी, एक, अनेक, कुनै | ||
| Norwegian (Bokmål) | Singular: -en, -et, -a (all suffixes) Plural: -ene, -a (all suffixes) | en, et, ei | |
| Norwegian (Nynorsk) | Singular: -en, -et, -a (all suffixes) Plural: -ane, -ene, -a (all suffixes) | ein, eit, ei | |
| Papiamento | e | un | |
| Pashto language | yaow, yaowə, yaowa, yaowey يو, يوهٔ, يوه, يوې | ||
| Persian language | in, ān (prepositive) -e (suffixed) | ye(k) (prepositive) -i (suffixed) | |
| Portuguese | o, a os, as | um, uma uns, umas | |
| Quenya | i, in, 'n | ||
| Romanian | -(u)l, -le, -(u)a -(u)lui, -i, -lor (all suffixes) | un, o unui, unei niște, unor | |
| Scots language | the | a | |
| Scottish Gaelic | an, am, a', na, nam, nan | ||
| Sindarin | i, in, -in, -n, en | ||
| Spanish | el, la, lo, los, las | un, una unos, unas | |
| Swedish language | Singular: -en, -n, -et, -t (all suffixes) Plural: -na, -a, -en (all suffixes) | en, ett | |
| Welsh language | y, yr, -'r | ||
| Yiddish | דער (der), די (di), דאָס (dos), דעם (dem) | אַ (a), אַן (an) |
The following examples show articles which are always suffixed to the noun:
Examples of prefixed definite articles:
A different way, limited to the definite article, is used by Latvian language and Lithuanian. The noun does not change but the adjective can be defined or undefined. In Latvian: galds, a table / the table; balt s galds, a white table; balt ais galds, the white table. In Lithuanian: stalas, a table / the table; balt as stalas, a white table; baltas is stalas, the white table.
Languages in the above table written in italics are constructed languages and are not natural, that is to say that they have been purposefully invented by an individual (or group of individuals) with some purpose in mind.
Joseph Greenberg in Universals of Human Language describes "the cycle of the definite article": Definite articles (Stage I) evolve from demonstratives, and in turn can become generic articles (Stage II) that may be used in both definite and indefinite contexts, and later merely noun markers (Stage III) that are part of nouns other than proper names and more recent borrowings. Eventually articles may evolve anew from demonstratives.
The English language definite article English articles, written þe in Middle English, derives from an Old English demonstrative, which, according to gender, was written se (masculine), seo (feminine) ( þe and þeo in the Northumbrian dialect), or þæt (neuter). The neuter form þæt also gave rise to the modern demonstrative that. The ye occasionally seen in pseudo-archaic usage such as "Ye Olde Englishe Tea Shoppe" is actually a form of þe, where the letter thorn ( þ) came to be written as a y.
Multiple demonstratives can give rise to multiple definite articles. Macedonian, for example, in which the articles are suffixed, has столот ( stolot), the chair; столов ( stolov), this chair; and столон ( stolon), that chair. These derive from the Proto-Slavic demonstratives "this, that", "this here" and "that over there, yonder" respectively. Colognian prepositions articles such as in dat Auto, or et Auto, the car; the first being specifically selected, focused, newly introduced, while the latter is not selected, unfocused, already known, general, or generic.
Standard Basque language distinguishes between proximal and distal definite articles in the plural (dialectally, a proximal singular and an additional medial grade may also be present). The Basque distal form (with infix -a-, etymologically a suffixed and phonetically reduced form of the distal demonstrative har-/hai-) functions as the default definite article, whereas the proximal form (with infix -o-, derived from the proximal demonstrative hau-/hon-) is marked and indicates some kind of (spatial or otherwise) close relationship between the speaker and the referent (e.g., it may imply that the speaker is included in the referent): etxeak ("the houses") vs. etxeok ("these houses of"), euskaldunak ("the Basque speakers") vs. euskaldunok ("we, the Basque speakers").
Speakers of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, a modern Aramaic language that lacks a definite article, may at times use demonstratives aha and aya (feminine) or awa (masculine) – which translate to "this" and "that", respectively – to give the sense of "the".Solomon, Zomaya S. (1997). Functional and other exotic sentences in Assyrian Aramaic, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, XI/2:44-69. In Indonesian, the third person possessive affix -nya could be also used as a definite article.
The English language indefinite article English articles is derived from the same root as one. The -n came to be dropped before consonants, giving rise to the shortened form a. The existence of both forms has led to many cases of juncture loss, for example transforming the original a napron into the modern an apron.
The Persian language indefinite article is yek, meaning one.
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