Editing Article (grammar) (section)

== Types of article ==

===Definite article===
{{Redirect|Definite article|the comedy album|Definite Article}}
<!-- This section is linked from the redirect "Definite article". If the section title changes, please update the red accordingly. -->

A '''definite article''' is an article that marks a [[definiteness|definite noun phrase]]. Definite articles, such as the English ''[[the]],'' are used to refer to a particular member of a group. It may be something that the speaker has already mentioned, or it may be otherwise something uniquely specified.

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.

# Give me ''the'' book.
# Give me ''a'' book.

The definite article can also be used in English to indicate a specific class among other classes:
: '''''The''' cabbage white butterfly lays its eggs on members of '''the''''' Brassica ''genus.''
However, recent developments show that definite articles are morphological elements linked to certain noun types due to [[lexicalization]]. Under this point of view, definiteness does not play a role in the selection of a definite article more than the lexical entry attached to the article.{{clarify|date=June 2016}}<ref>{{Citation |last1=Recasens |first1=Marta |title=First-mention definites:More than exceptional cases |date=2009-06-16 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110216158.217/html |work=The Fruits of Empirical Linguistics II |volume=102 |pages=217–238 |editor-last=Winkler |editor-first=Susanne |place=Berlin, New York |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter |language=en |doi=10.1515/9783110216158.217 |isbn=978-3-11-021347-8 |access-date=2023-01-16 |last2=Martí |first2=M. Antònia |author2-link=Maria Antònia Martí|last3=Taulé |first3=Mariona |editor2-last=Featherston |editor2-first=Sam}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/969386958 |title=New perspectives on Hispanic contact : linguistics in the Americas |date=2015 |publisher=Iberoamericana |others=Melvin González-Rivera, and Sandro Sessarego |isbn=978-3-95487-831-4 |location=Madrid |oclc=969386958}}</ref>

Some languages (such as the continental [[North Germanic languages]], [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] or [[Romanian language|Romanian]]) have definite articles only as [[suffix]]es.

===Indefinite article===

<!-- This section is linked from the redirect "Indefinite article". If the section title changes, please update the redirect accordingly. -->
An '''indefinite article''' is an article that marks an [[definiteness|indefinite noun phrase]]. Indefinite articles are those such as English "[[English articles#Indefinite article|a]]" or "an", which do not refer to a specific identifiable entity. Indefinites are commonly used to introduce a new discourse referent which can be referred back to in subsequent discussion:

# A monster ate a cookie. His name is [[Cookie Monster]].

Indefinites can also be used to generalize over entities who have some property in common:

# A cookie is a wonderful thing to eat.

Indefinites can also be used to refer to specific entities whose precise identity is unknown or unimportant.

# A monster must have broken into my house last night and eaten all my cookies.
# A friend of mine told me that happens frequently to people who live on Sesame Street.

Indefinites also have predicative uses:

# Leaving my door unlocked was a bad decision.

Indefinite noun phrases are widely studied within linguistics, in particular because of their ability to take [[scope (formal semantics)#Exceptional scope|exceptional scope]].

===Proper article===

A '''proper''' article indicates that its [[Proper noun|noun is proper]], and refers to a unique entity. It may be the name of a person, the name of a place, the name of a planet, etc. The [[Māori language]] has the proper article {{lang|mi|a}}, which is used for personal nouns; so, "{{lang|mi|a Pita}}" means "Peter". In Māori, when the personal nouns have the definite or indefinite article as an important part of it, both articles are present; for example, the phrase "{{lang|mi|a Te Rauparaha}}", which contains both the proper article {{lang|mi|a}} and the definite article {{lang|mi|Te}} refers to the person name [[Te Rauparaha]].

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''.{{Citation needed|date=February 2020}} 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 [[Democratic Republic of the Congo|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: {{lang|fr|la France}}, {{lang|fr|le Canada}}, {{lang|fr|l'Allemagne}}; {{lang|it|l'Italia}}, {{lang|it|la Spagna}}, {{lang|it|il Brasile}}.

{{blockquote|text=If a name [has] a definite article, e.g. ''[[Moscow Kremlin|the Kremlin]]'', it cannot idiomatically be used without it: we cannot say ''[[Boris Yeltsin]] is in Kremlin''.|author=[[Robert Burchfield|R. W. Burchfield]]<ref>{{cite book|first=R. W.|last=Burchfield|author-link=Robert Burchfield|page=512|year=1996|edition=3rd|title=The New Fowler's Modern English Usage|isbn=978-0199690367|title-link=A Dictionary of Modern English Usage|publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref>}}

Some languages use definite articles with [[personal name]]s, as in [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] ({{lang|pt|a Maria}}, literally: "the Maria"), [[Greek language|Greek]] ({{lang|el|η Μαρία|italic=no}}, {{lang|el|ο Γιώργος|italic=no}}, {{lang|el|ο Δούναβης|italic=no}}, {{lang|el|η Παρασκευή|italic=no}}), and [[Catalan language|Catalan]] ({{lang|ca|la Núria}}, {{lang|ca|el}}/{{lang|ca|en Oriol}}). Such usage also occurs colloquially or dialectally in [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[German language|German]], [[French language|French]], [[Italian language|Italian]] and other languages. In [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], the colloquial use of definite articles with personal names, though widespread, is considered to be a [[Germanism (linguistics)|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]].<ref name="WaPo">{{cite news |last1=Argetsinger |first1=Amy |date=1 September 2015 |title=Why does everyone call Donald Trump 'The Donald'? It's an interesting story. |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2015/09/01/why-does-everyone-call-donald-trump-the-donald-its-an-interesting-story/ |access-date=3 October 2017}}</ref>

===Partitive article===

<!-- This section is linked from the redirect "Partitive article". If the section title changes, please update the redirect accordingly. -->A '''partitive''' article is a type of article, sometimes viewed as a type of indefinite article, used with a [[mass noun]] such as ''water'', to indicate a non-specific quantity of it. Partitive articles are a class of [[determiner]]; they are used in [[French language|French]] and [[Italian language|Italian]] in addition to definite and indefinite articles. (In [[Finnish language|Finnish]] and [[Estonian language|Estonian]], the partitive is indicated by inflection.) The nearest equivalent in English is ''some'', although it is classified as a [[determiner]], and English uses it less than French uses {{lang|fr|de}}. 
: French: {{lang|fr|Veux-tu '''du''' café ?}}
: ''Do you want ('''some''') coffee?''

:For more information, see the article on [[French articles and determiners#Partitive article|the French partitive article]].

[[Haida language|Haida]] has a partitive article (suffixed {{lang|hai|-gyaa}}) referring to "part of something or... to one or more objects of a given group or category," e.g., {{lang|hai|tluugyaa uu hal tlaahlaang}} "he is making a boat (a member of the category of boats)."<ref>{{cite book|last=Lawrence|first=Erma|year=1977|title=Haida dictionary|location=Fairbanks|publisher=Alaska Native Language Center|page=64|url=http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/recordDetails.jsp?ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED162532&searchtype=keyword&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&_pageLabel=RecordDetails&accno=ED162532&_nfls=false}}</ref>

===Negative article===

<!-- This section is linked from the redirect "Negative article". If the section title changes, please update the redirect accordingly. -->A '''negative''' article specifies ''none'' of its noun, and can thus be regarded as neither definite nor indefinite. On the other hand, some consider such a word to be a simple [[determiner (linguistics)|determiner]] rather than an article. In English, this function is fulfilled by ''no'', which can appear before a singular or plural noun: 
: '''''No''' man has been on this island.''
: '''''No''' dogs are allowed here.''
: '''''No''' one is in the room.''

In [[German language|German]], the negative article is, among other variations, ''kein'', in opposition to the indefinite article ''ein''.
:''Ein Hund'' &ndash; a dog
:'''''K'''ein Hund'' &ndash; no dog

The equivalent in [[Dutch language|Dutch]] is ''geen'':
: ''een hond'' &ndash; a dog
: '''''g'''een hond'' &ndash; no dog

===Zero article===

{{See also|Zero article in English}}

The '''zero article''' is the absence of an article. In languages having a definite article, the lack of an article specifically indicates that the noun is indefinite. Linguists interested in [[X-bar theory]] causally link zero articles to nouns lacking a determiner.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1016/S0346-251X(97)00010-9 |title=The English article system: Acquisition, function, and pedagogy |journal=System |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=215–232 |year=1997 |last1=Master |first1=Peter }}</ref> In English, the zero article rather than the indefinite is used with [[grammatical number|plurals]] and [[mass noun]]s, although the word "some" can be used as an indefinite plural article.

: '''''Visitors''' end up walking in '''mud'''.''