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?

• ‘Indirect’ has four pipes, though sometimes it has only three, when the balance tank in the roof is combined with the storage tank, or when an ancient ‘primatic’ cylinder has been fitted. _{[W2D-012 #109]}
• on the railways the Leningrad metro shiftworkers in factories in steel mills and most tellingly of all in the once docile republic of Byelorussia _{[S2B-040 #52]}
• Uhm finding myself in the the Mike Heafy Centre where there were able-bodied people working alongside disabled people uhm I became increasingly excited about the possibilities of working with dance uh in that setting simply because a lot of what I saw happening there didn’t seem to really uhm engage both sets of people to a maximum of their physical and their creative abilities _{[S1A-004 #66]}
• and he will take no further part in the game or certainly won’t take any further part at the moment _{[S2A-014 #88]}
• Television technology has progressed rapidly since this time and few people would have predicted the popularity which it now enjoys. _{[W2B-034 #8]}
• The cleaned maggots will then be placed in clean trays and ground maize added to further clean and freshen them. _{[W2D-017 #58]}
• The staff will then keep a special eye open for you and alert the police if necessary. _{[W2D-009 #166]}
• He burst from her arms, sending her twisting in a heap on the floor. _{[W2F-008 #122]}
• In Scandinavia, after centuries of conflict, Swedish and Norwegian leaders deliberately chose to seek a path of friendship and cooperation - and disciplined their communications consistently. 55 _{[W2A-017 #75]}
• St Denis had been completed in 1144, but it had already been superseded by the splendid new cathedral of St Etienne in Sens, the first true Gothic church which had been finished in 1168. _{[W2B-003 #80]}

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