Determiners
Determiners form a class of words that occur in the left-most position inside noun phrases. They thus precede nouns, as well as any adjectives that may be present.
The most common determiners are the and a/an (these are also called the definite aticle and indefinite article).
Here are some more determiners:
- any taxi
- that question
- those apples
- this paper
- some apple
- whatever taxi
- whichever taxi
As these examples show, determiners can have various kinds of 'specifying' functions. For example, they can help us to identify which person or thing the noun refers to. So, if in a conversation with you I talk about that man you will know who I am talking about. In the following examples the determiners specify a quantity:
- all examples
- both parents
- many people
- each person
- every night
- several computers
- few excuses
- enough water
- no escape
Be aware that the following items belong to the class of pronouns when they occur on their own (e.g. I like this very much), but when they occur before nouns (e.g. this book) they belong to both the determiner and pronoun classes:
- this/that
- these/those
What about possessive my, your, his/her, our, and their when they occur before nouns, as in my book, her bicycle?
The National Curriculum Glossary has examples like her book in the entries for ‘possessive’, ‘pronoun' and ‘determiner’, which seems to suggest that they belong to both classes, i.e. deteminer and pronoun. In our grammar videos (https://www.youtube.com/user/engliciousgrammar), especially videos 2 and 3, we hedge our bets and say that her belongs to both classes, i.e. it’s both a determiner and a pronoun, because this is what then NC seems to be claiming. (See also 'Advanced'.) However, in the GPS tests for KS1 and KS2 it is always assumed that these words are determiners, not pronouns, despite what it says in the glossary.
The words mine, yours, his/hers, ours and theirs (e.g.That phone is mine) occur on their own and we take them to be pronouns.
Determiners can sometimes be modified themselves, usually by a preceding modifier, examples being [almost every] night and [very many] people.
Here are some more words acting as determiners. These examples are drawn directly from the ICE-GB corpus. Refreshing your screen will produce a new list of examples. Which noun does each determiner point at, and what does each determiner tell us about the noun?
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Determiners: Advanced
The following is taken from Bas Aarts's Grammarianism blog.
In a recent blog post on terminology I mentioned the word class of determiners, and said that they are a relatively new word class.
By 'relatively new' I mean 'early twentieth century'. The National Curriculum Glossary definition, determiner, is very brief, here I'll expand on it.
- Articles: these are the best known determiners. The indefinite articles (a and an) are used when we assume that a hearer cannot identify the referent of the noun in front of which they appear. By contrast, definite articles are used when we assume that the hearer can identify the referent of the noun. In my earlier post I contrasted the phrases a cat and the cat. When I use the former I'm talking about a cat that you cannot identify. If, however, I use the definite article then I assume that you can identify the cat in question.
- Demonstrative determiners: these are determiners that have a 'pointing' (deictic) function. They identify the referent of a noun as nearby (this/these), or as distant (that/those). Some people talk of 'demonstrative adjectives', but this is a bad idea, for the same reason that 'possessive adjectives' are a bad idea (Listen to Bas Aarts on SoundCloud). Note that in the National Curriculum the demonstratives are treated as pronouns when they occur on their own, as in Jimmy likes that.
- Possessive determiners: these typically indicate possession, as in my hair, her bike, their teachers. They are not adjectives. What is a little bit confusing (and perhaps unfortunate) is that the National Curriculum Glossary actually seems to regard these words as belonging to both the class of determiners and the class of pronouns at the same time, as a quick look at the examples in the entries for determiner, pronoun and possessive will make clear. Perhaps a better label would have been 'determiner-pronoun' for these words, as some linguists have suggested. We could then also use this label for the demonstratives this, that, etc. Note that mine, yours, his, hers, ours, and theirs, which do not occur before nouns, are treated in the National Curriculum as possessive pronouns. Here's an example: These socks are mine.
- Quantifier determiners: this is a very general label which indicates that these determiners typically indicate a quantity of some sort. More specific labels are sometimes also used (see below).
What follows is a longer list of determiners (in part based on the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language; see also Bas Aarts's Oxford Modern English Grammar). As already noted, some of the labels used here are a bit more specific than those used in the National Curriculum.
Don't worry about the labels themselves. What's more important is to see which words in addition to those listed above are classed as determiners in English.
- The additive determiner: another. Example: Do you have another suggestion?
- Degree determiners: few, little, many, much. Example: Few people know about his plans.
- Disjunctive determiners: either, neither. Example: Either solution will do.
- Distributive determiners: each, every. Example: Each student will write two essays.
- Existential determiners: any, some. Example: Some people have all the fun.
- The interrogative determiner: which. Example: Which radio stations do you listen to?
- The negative determiner: no. Example: No amount of tea will satisfy her.
- Numeral determiners: one, two, three, etc. Example: We have three children.
- Personal determiners: Example: You people are always against our ideas.
- Positive paucal determiners: certain, a few, a little, several, various. Example: Several people arrived at the gate.
- The relative determiner: which. Example: He left at ten, at which point everyone sighed with relief.
- Sufficiency determiners: enough, sufficient. Example: I have enough bread to eat.
- Universal determiners: all, both. Example: All cats love milk.
As with the demonstrative determiners and the possessive determiners, many of these items can also occur on their own. They are then regarded as pronouns. Here are some examples:
- I went to the zoo to see the elephants, but I didn't see any.
- I love ice-cream. In fact, I'd love some right now.
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