An article is a word that is put next to a noun to indicate the type of reference being made to the noun. A noun, or noun substantive, is a word or phrase that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality. ...

Articles can have various functions:

• a definite article (English the) indicates that the noun refers to a specific thing that the speaker has in mind (The chair was broken)
• an indefinite article (English a, an, some or any) indicates that the noun refers to something of the kind, but the particular instance isn't important (A chair was broken).
• a zero article is implied as the definite article but is not pronounced.
• a partitive article indicates an indefinite quantity of a mass noun; there is no partitive article in English, though the words some or any often have that function. An example is French du / de la, as in Voulez-vous du café ? ("Do you want some coffee?")

Some languages such as Swahili rarely use articles, indicating such distinctions in other ways or not at all. Some languages, including Japanese, Russian and Thai do not have them at all (in those languages, if necessary, you can use "one" and "that" in contexts where other languages would use an indefinite and definite article). The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... A and an function primarily as the indefinite forms of the grammatical article in the English language. ... A and an function primarily as the indefinite forms of the grammatical article in the English language. ... A zero article is an unpronounced article present in some languages. ... In English, a mass noun is a type of noun that cannot be modified by a number without specifying a unit of measurement; thus mass nouns have singular but no plural forms. ... Swahili (also called Kiswahili; see Kiswahili for a discussion of the nomenclature) is an agglutinative Bantu language widely spoken in East Africa. ...

Other languages, including Welsh and the constructed languages Esperanto or Ido, have definite articles, but no indefinite articles. For example, in Esperanto and Ido, the house is la domo, while a house is domo. Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ... Esperanto flag Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international language. ... Ido is a reformed version of the constructed language Esperanto. ...

In the etymologies of many languages, definite articles formerly were demonstrative pronouns or adjectives; compare the fate of the Latin demonstrative ille in the Romance languages, becoming French le, Spanish el, and Italian il. In historical linguistics, etymology is the study of the origins of words. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. ... An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually making its meaning more specific. ... The Romance languages, also called Romanic languages or New Latin Languages, are a subset of the Italic languages, specifically the descendants of the Latin dialects spoken by the common people in what is known as Latin Europe (Italian/Portuguese/Spanish Europa latina, French Europe latine, Romanian Europa latină) as Vulgar...

Many European languages that have grammatical gender usually have their article agree with the gender of the noun (French le 'the' masculine, la feminine). Articles in several languages also change according to the number of the noun. In French, since the plural forms marked on nouns often no longer affect pronunciation, the article marks the number of the noun. In linguistics, grammatical genders, also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once (Hockett 1958: 231). ... Number, in linguistics, is a grammatical category relevant to certain lexemes such as nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs. ...

When homonyms have a different gender in these languages, the articles can differentiate them, as in Spanish, where la cólera (feminine) is "anger" and el cólera (masculine) is "cholera", or German, where die Steuer (feminine) is "the tax" and das Steuer (neuter) is "the steering-wheel", or Swedish, where en plan (common) is "a plan" and ett plan (neuter) is "a plane". Distribution of cholera Cholera (also called Asiatic cholera) is an infectious disease of the gastrointestinal tract caused by the Vibrio cholerae bacterium. ... In mathematics, a plane is the fundamental two-dimensional object. ...

The use of articles may vary between languages. For example, French uses its definite article in cases where English uses no article, such as in general statements about a mass noun: Le maïs est un grain ("Maize is a grain"). In English, a mass noun is a type of noun that cannot be modified by a number without specifying a unit of measurement; thus mass nouns have singular but no plural forms. ... Binomial name Zea mays L. Maize (Zea mays ssp. ... An assortment of grains The word grain has a great many meanings, most being descriptive of a small piece or particle. ...

French uses words such as ce to specify increasing definiteness. Both Ancient and Modern Greek use the definite article with proper names: ὁ Ἰησοῦς ho Iēsoûs ("the Jesus"), and, optionally, before both a noun and each of its adjectives: ὁ πατήρ ὁ ἀγαθός ho patēr ho agathós (literally, "the father the good"; naturally, "the good father"). Similarly, in German colloquial speech you may say "Ich habe mit der Claudia gesprochen" (literally, "I have with the Claudia spoken"); also, in colloquial northern Italian, phrases like "Ho parlato col Marco" ("I have spoken with the Marco) are common, and Catalan grammar prescribes constructions such as He parlat amb la Gemma (lit. "I have spoken with the Gemma"). Ancient Greek refers to the first stage in the history of the Greek language, which normally applies on two ancient periods of Greek history: Archaic and Classic Greece. ... Modern Greek (Νεοελληνική) is a dialect family that refers to the fifth stage of the evolution of the Greek language (the first four being Mycenean, Ancient Greek, Post-Classical or Hellenistic Greek and Medieval Greek), and it includes every dialect and idiom of Hellenic speech that exists in the world today. ... Catalan (Català, Valencià) is a Romance language understood by as many as 12 million people in portions of Spain, France, Andorra and Italy, although the majority of active Catalan speakers are in Spain. ...

By the same token, the words used as English articles have other grammatical functions. See A, an. A and an function primarily as the indefinite forms of the grammatical article in the English language. ...

In Scandinavian languages, the definite article can be a suffix. In Swedish, planen is "the plan", and planet is "the plane", and a double definite article is possible, in which a free-standing article (det, den, de) and the definite article suffix are used together (det vita planet "the white plane"). The Romanian language also uses suffixes for articles; for example, consulul is 'the consul'. Macedonian and Bulgarian also do; for example, drvo means "tree", while drvoto means "the tree" (durvo and durvoto in Bulgarian). The North Germanic languages (also Scandinavian languages or Nordic languages) is a branch of the Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia, parts of Finland and on the Faroe Islands and Iceland. ... Romanian (limba română IPA ), the official language of Romania is an Eastern Romance language, spoken natively by about 26 million people, most of them in Romania and Vojvodina. ...

The, the English grammatical article

The word the functions primarily as the definite grammatical article in English.

The and that are common developments from the same Old English system. Old English had a definite article se, in the masculine gender, seo, feminine, and þæt, neuter. These words functioned both as demonstrative pronouns and as grammatical articles. In Middle English these had all fallen together into þe, the ancestor of the Modern English word. Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Middle English is the name given by historical philologists to the diverse forms of the English language spoken in England from around the 12th to the 15th centuries— from after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror in 1066 to the mid to late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

Usage

The following discussion is meant to give pointers in the uses of the grammatical articles the and a for non-native speakers.

When using English, the can be thought of as similar to a little computer cursor. Where the cursor is resting, one's attention also rests.

The chair ...

It is customary to focus on the word following the word the with the questions 'who', 'where', 'when', 'why', 'how', and then wait for the rest of the sentence, which should complete the meaning.

The chair is ...

Now it gets interesting - is implies NOW, so the listener should pay attention for a current event!

The chair is broken.

The sentence is completed; the listener sits on that specific chair at his own peril.

The little words are important

H.S. Wall, a professor of mathematics at the University of Texas, once said that in a mathematical proof, the little words are important, and illustrated it with the statement

I have a son

which he noted does not necessarily mean that he has only one son.

See also: Determiner Determiners are words which quantify or identify nouns. ...