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An article is a Word that is put next to a Noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles can have various functions {Link without Title} :
PRESENCE IN VARIOUS LANGUAGES Some Language s such as Swahili rarely use articles, indicating such distinctions in other ways or not at all. Some other languages, including Latin , Chinese , Korean , Japanese , Russian , Slovak , Tamil and Thai do not have them at all and definiteness may be indicated by words meaning "one" and "that" or by word order. In some dialects in Northern England the definite article has been lost: for example, ''I'm going down the/t'pub'' vs ''I'm going down pub''. Other languages, including Welsh and Hebrew and the constructed languages Esperanto or Ido , have definite articles, but no explicit indefinite articles. For example, in Welsh, ''the house'' is ''y tŷ'', while ''a house'' is ''tŷ''. Likewise, in Hebrew ''the house'' is ''הבית (ha-bayit),'' while ''a house'' is ''בית (bayit)''. In the history of many languages, definite articles formerly were demonstrative Pronoun s or Adjective s; compare the evolution of the Latin demonstrative ''ille'' in the Romance Languages , becoming French ''le'', Spanish ''el'', and Italian ''il'', while indefinite articles originate or are same as the numeral for ''one''. Many European languages that have Grammatical Gender usually have their article agree with the gender of the noun (French ''le'' 'the' masculine, ''la'' feminine). Articles in several languages also change according to the number of the noun. In French, since the plural forms marked on nouns often no longer affect pronunciation, the article marks the Number of the noun. When homonyms have a different gender in these languages, the articles can differentiate them, as in Spanish , where ''la cólera'' (feminine) is "anger" and ''el cólera'' (masculine) is " Cholera ", or German , where ''die Steuer'' (feminine) is "the tax" and ''das Steuer'' (neuter) is "the steering-wheel", or Swedish , where ''en plan'' (common) is "a plan" and ''ett plan'' (neuter) is "a Plane ". The use of articles may vary between languages. For example, French uses its definite article in cases where English uses no article, such as in general statements about a is a Grain "). Both , proper names are preceded by an article, except if language is formal ''and'' there is no title before the name. Similarly, in German colloquial speech you may say "Ich habe mit der Claudia gesprochen" (literally, "I have with the Claudia spoken"); also, in colloquial northern Italian, phrases like "Ho parlato col Marco" ("I have spoken with the Marco) are common, and Catalan grammar prescribes constructions such as ''He parlat amb la Gemma'' (lit. "I have spoken with the Gemma"). By the same token, the words used as English articles have other grammatical functions. See A, An . In Scandinavian Languages , the definite article can be a suffix. In Swedish, ''planen'' is "the plan", and ''planet'' is "the plane", and a double definite article is possible, in which a free-standing article (''det'', ''den'', ''de'') and the definite article suffix are used together (''det vita planet'' "the white plane"). Curiously, ''planen'' is also the plural definite form for the neuter "the planes". Several languages on the Balkans also use suffixes for articles. This is regarded as an effect of the Balkan Linguistic Union . For example, in Romanian , ''consulul'' is 'the consul'. Macedonian and Bulgarian share the pattern; for example, ''drvo'' means "tree", while ''drvoto'' means "the tree" (''durvo'' and ''durvoto'' in Bulgarian). ''THE'', THE ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL ARTICLE ''Main article: The '' The word ''the'' functions primarily as the definite grammatical article in English. ''The'' and ''that'' are common developments from the same Old English system. Old English had a definite article ''se'', in the masculine gender, ''seo'', feminine, and ''þæt'', neuter. These words functioned both as demonstrative pronouns and as grammatical articles. In Middle English these had all fallen together into ''þe'', the ancestor of the Modern English word. Because the word ''the'' is common in movie and book titles, they are placed invertedly, such as ''Grudge, The'', for convenience when looking for a title. In some northern British Dialect s of English, "the" is pronounced as {Link without Title} or as a glottal stop, usually written in dialect dialogue as t', a phenomenon known as Definite Article Reduction . USAGE ''The following discussion is meant to give pointers in the uses of the grammatical articles the and '''a''' for non-native speakers.'' When using English, ''the'' can be thought of as similar to a little computer cursor. Where the cursor is resting, one's attention also rests. The chair ... :It is customary to focus on the word following the word ''the'' with the questions 'who', 'where', 'when', 'why', 'what', 'how', and then wait for the rest of the sentence, which should complete the meaning. The chair is ... :Now it gets interesting - ''is'' implies NOW, so the listener should pay attention for a current event! The chair is broken. :The sentence is completed; the listener sits on that specific chair at his own peril. We may think of ''the'' as related to ''this'' or ''that.'' If you say ''the'' chair is broken, you expect the person to know which chair you mean--''this chair,'' ''that'' chair, the only chair in the room. We may think of ''a'' as meaning ''one'' or ''any one.'' So if you say ''a chair is broken'' it means that only one is broken and it is unknown which one. Consider the difference between these two sentences: ''I am looking for a book'' OR ''I am looking for '''the''' book.'' In the first case, you do not expect your listener to know what book you are looking for. Perhaps you do not even have any particular book in mind (I am looking for a book to read on the plane, but I don't know what book I want.) However, if you say, ''I am looking for '''the''' book'', you are telling your listener that you expect him to know what book that is. (I am looking for the book you asked for, or I am looking for the book I lost, or I am looking for the only book in the room, etc.) Usually a plural noun with zero article is used for making a generalization, but for count nouns, we can also use ''a.'' Thus: ''Cats can climb trees'' and ''A cat can climb a tree'' both are telling us something about cats in general, not an unknown cat or a specific cat. We often use the indefinite article (a/an) for first mention and the definite article (the) thereafter, to show that we are talking about the same one we just mentioned. For example: A man walked into a bank. ''(I don't expect you to know who the man is or what bank he walked into.)'' The man walked up to a teller, pointed a gun at her, and asked her for money. ''(same man, but teller, gun and money are new information, first mention.)'' The teller gave the man the money. (''same teller, same man,same money.)'' The man ran out of the bank and got into a car. ''(same man, same bank, first mention of car.) '' In a sentence "__ John was lying on the chair" the Noun Phrase "__ John" is said to have a zero article rather than no article. Compare to "A book was lying on a chair", here the noun phrase "a book" clearly has an article. Thus it is logical to assume that a noun phrase "___ John" should have an article as well. Generally proper nouns, such as names, are automatically definite and use zero article. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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