There are three article Determiners in English- a, an, the. As the name suggest Article Determiners are used to determine an article, object or noun in a clause and is always followed by it. For Ex- an apple, a grape, a biscuit, a cheese cake, an alligator, the houseboat etc. We will further study about them in detail and also solve few exercises. Article Determiners are further classified into two categories-
There is only one Definite Article and that is ‘The’. It is used when the speaker assumes that the listener knows what he is talking about. For ex-
In all the above sentences the listener already knows the noun/pronoun which the speaker is referring to. I.e. book, phone, courier, train, sun and day are already familiar to the listener.
Please note that ‘the’ should not be used with the names of countries (can be used with countries having plural names), people, places.
Quickly go through the following sentences-
There are only two indefinite articles- a, an. The simple rule of using ‘a’ and ‘an’ in a sentence is that the ‘an’ is used if the next word starts with a vowel- a, e, i, o, u. Though there are few exceptions to this rule like those words staring with ‘u’ and ‘eu’ should be prefixed by ‘a’ which we will go through in this section. Read the following sentences-
Going through the sentences you must have come across few exceptions, we will go through them one by one to have more clarity on the subject.
You must be wondering that why despite starting with a vowel- ‘u’ the word ‘university’ is prefixed by ‘a’? The catch lies in the pronunciation. University sounds like –‘yew’niversity hence is prefixed with- ‘a’.
Even when the word ‘hour’ doesn’t start with a vowel, why is it prefixed by – ‘an’? That is because the words those have a silent ‘h’ and on pronunciation sound like staring with a vowel are always prefixed by –‘a’. For example- an hour, an honor, an honorable gesture, an honest man etc.
Complete the below sentences with appropriate Article Determiners, and refer to the answer provided at the end.
Fill in the sentences with appropriate determiners from the choices provided-
State whether the following sentences are True or False.
Answers-
Fill In The Blanks– 1) a, 2) the, 3) an, 4) an, 5) an
MCQ– 1) a, 2) a, 3) b, 4) a, 5) c
True Or False– 1)false, 2)true, 3)false, 4)true, 5)false, 6)false, 7)false, 8)true, 9)false, 10)true
How you can make True the False ones: Here it is described with reason:
1) ‘An apple’ is the proper formation as ‘apple’ starts with a vowel. i.e. (a, e, i, o, u)
3) An African elephant
5) ‘The man’ is not proper as the ‘man’ is not known to the listener. ‘A man took my book’ is the correct formation.
6) The country needs an honest politician.( ‘h’ is silent and the word sounds starting with a vowel)
7) The future of nation depends on its people.
9) The mango you gave me was rotten.
Related Topics:
Determiner
Distributive Determiners
Possessive Determiners
Interrogative Determiners
Quantifier Determiners