Article (grammar)

Articles in European languages defined and indefinite article only defined articles defined postposed and indefinite article only postposed defined articles without articles

The article, in linguistic morphology, is a type of updater determiner, a morphological category used by some languages to update or specify the reference of a noun, transforming it from unknown and abstract («a book") to known and concrete ("the book"). It is an indicator that places what is said in the common context of the speaker and the listener, that is, in the mutual agreement of the interlocutors.

In traditional grammar, both the definite determiners and the indefinite determiner related to the meaning of '1' are called articles. In generative grammar, the article is generally considered to be the syntactic nucleus of the determiner phrase.

Languages with articles

• The ancient Indo-European languages lacked articles, except for the classical Greek. However, in several branches of the family they have developed from deicctic elements, so all Romanesque languages have articles, also the most important Germanic languages, modern Celtic languages and some Slavic languages.
• Semitic languages generally lack article although the two most notorious, the Hebrew and the Arab, possess articles.

The articles in the Spanish language

Articles belong to a class of grammatical meaning words that precede the noun, and agree in gender and number. Articles indicate whether the noun they refer to is determinate (known) or indeterminate (unknown).

In the Spanish language there are 11 different singular and plural articles. They are classified like this:

Sometimes, the article the can form a single word with the prepositions a and de, giving rise to the contractions to and del, as shown in the following table:

Definite or Definite Articles

In the Spanish language there are four definite articles: masculine singular (el), masculine plural (los), feminine singular (la) and feminine plural (las), although some authors include a neuter singular (lo).

Examples

the dog (single masculine).

the dogs (multiple masculine).

the chicken eats corn (single feminine).

the chickens eat corn (multiple female).

In Spanish, the use of the article before a proper name is not common in formal records, however it is quite common in informal records in many areas. Examples: "Daniel likes to exercise." "La Cristina Estudia Sociales." Its use is also accepted to refer to some locations such as countries and cities. Examples: "India", "Peru", "Argentina", "Mexico City".

Gender Agreement

Feminine singular nouns beginning with an "a" tonic must take the masculine article (unless there is an adjective between the article and the noun):

• Clean water, clear water, clean water, clean water, clean water, clean water.
• The wide water, the wide water (even though the adjective starts with tonic "a", is not said "the wide water"), that water
• The warrior eagle, the eagle warrior, the warrior eagles, that eagle.
• The majestic ade, the majestic anade, the majestic anades, that anade.
• The arid area, the arid area, the arid areas, that area.
• The arid area, the arid area (even though the adjective starts with tonic "a" is not said "the arid area"), that area.
• The gun fired, the gun shot, the guns fired, that gun.
• The broken axe, the broken axe, that axe.
• The fairy, the good fairy, that fairy.

Indefinite or indefinite articles

The Spanish language also has indefinite articles:

A dog (single masculine).

A few dogs (multiple masculine).

One chicken eats corn (single feminine).

A few chickens eat corn (multiple female).

A fan is on offer (single masculine).

You are a working men (multiple male).

You are. One very educated woman (single female).

A few girls go straight to school (multiple female).

Articles in other languages

Not all languages follow the Spanish rules for articles, most of the world's languages do not have an article at all. Other languages only have the definite, an example of this is Arabic, where the prefix al- serves as the definite article but there is no independent indefinite article, thus to say 'the book' it is said الكتاب (al-kitāb) and the same happens in Hebrew where there is the definite article ה־ (ha-) but not an indefinite article.

There are also languages in which the definite article is just an enclitic, such as Romanian where the article is -l (with some variations between words, and obviously by gender and number), thus, codru ('forest') becomes codrul ('the forest'), but the indefinite remains separate, so so much would be un codru ('a forest'); In addition, there are other articles, the aforementioned Romanian has a genitive (or possessive) article that is used to mark possession or relationship, and it is al (with fewer variations than the other two), this is mostly used to mark the genitive case when the possessed has the indefinite article.

French has, in addition to the definite and indefinite, a partitive article, du (which is a combination of de + le), and which is used together with uncountable nouns, such as: Voulez-vous du café?, 'do you want coffee' (literally: 'do you want coffee?').

Another example of the use of articles is that of Macedonian, where the definite article has three forms (which with the different genders and their plurals become fifteen), -ov for close objects, -on for far objects, and -ot when not specified. In Seri (an Indo-American language, from Northern Mexico), there are even more definite articles, which are used depending on the movement and position of the object, quij is used for sitting objects, cap/cop is used for stationary objects, and so on for seven others.