University "Goce Delcev" - Stip

Faculty of Philology

SEMINAR PAPER of MORPHOLOGY 2

The Indefinite Article

 Contents

Introduction ……………………………………(3, 4)

Forms of the Indefinite Article…………………..(4)

Uses of a/an………………………………………(5, 7)

Omission of the Article…………………………(8, 11)

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 The Indefinite Article

In English there are two articles; the definite article the and the
indefinite article a/ an. The articles appear with nouns and their primary
function is to mark them as definite or indefinite in reference to: whether
they are known to the speaker, whether they are known to the speaker but
unknown to the listener, whether they are not known to either of them.
Which of these factors prevails determines whether the noun will take
the, a/an or will appear without an article. However, the choice also
depends on whether the noun is used to refer to a whole class or species,
whether it is used in a particular or general sense, whether it is modified
by an adverbial phrase, and the listing does not stop here. Such a large
number of factors are at play that trying to discover them and describe
them will be as futile a task as ploughing the sand.

An article is a word that is used with a noun to indicate the type of

reference being made by the noun. Articles specify grammatical of the
noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The
articles in the English language are the and a/an, and (in some contexts)
some. An and a are modern forms of the Old English 'an', which in
Anglican dialects was the number 'one' (compare 'on', in Saxon dialects)
and survived into Modern Scots as the number 'ane'. Both 'on' (respelled
'one' by the Normans) and 'an' survived into Modern English, with 'one'
used as the number and 'an' ('a', before nouns that begin with a consonant
sound) as an indefinite article.

In languages that employ articles, every common noun, with some

exceptions, is expressed with a certain definiteness (e.g., definite or
indefinite), just as many languages express every noun with a certain
(e.g., singular or plural). The article, if any, corresponding to its
definiteness, must accompany every noun and the lack of an article
(considered a zero article), itself specifies certain definiteness. This is in
contrast to other adjectives and determiners, which are typically optional.
This obligatory nature of articles makes them among the most common
words in many languages—in English, for example, the most frequent
word is the.

Articles are usually characterized as either definite or indefinite. A

few languages with well-developed systems of articles may distinguish
additional subtypes. Within each type, languages may have various forms
of each article, according to grammatical attributes such as gender,
number, case or according to adjacent sounds.

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 The indefinite article: a / an

Forms

The indefinite article has two forms a and an.

a appears in front of a word that begins with a consonant sound.
ex.
 a hat,
 a cat,
 a bed,
 a window,
 a door etc.

an is used in front of a word that begins with a vowel sound.

ex.
 an apple,
 an orange,
 an umbrella,
 an ice cream
 an egg etc.

NOTE:
An before an h mute - an hour, an honour.
A before u and eu when they sound like 'you': a european, a
university, a unit

Uses of a/an

1. The indefinite article most often occurs with countable

singular nouns when they refer to beings or things mentioned for the
first time.

ex.
 I’ve bought a new house.
 She met a beautiful boy yesterday.

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 2. It is also used with common nouns in the singular to single out
the noun as representative of a group or species. In this way we use
a/an to classify things, animals, persons, etc.

ex.
 A dog is a domestic animal.
 A lion is very strong.
 A man needs friends. (All men needs friends)

3. With the meaning –one:

ex.
 Give me an orange!
 A thousands dollars.
 Take a kilo of potatoes

4. In some time frequency adverbials, before phrases of time and

measurements

ex.
 Take this medicine three times a day.
 I play basketball once a week.
 We have English 4 times a week.
 I go on holiday twice a year.
 Our car can do 220 kilometres an hour.
 Tomatoes are $2 a kilo.

5. After certain adjectives or adverbs ( what, not, many, quite,

rather, such)

ex.
 Not a soul appeared at the restaurant.
 Many a man died for the freedom of Macedonia.
 Rather a large crowd gathered outside the Government.
 She is such a lovely person.
 What a shame!
 She's such a beautiful girl.

6. With fractions: a fifth, a third, a half …

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 7. With nouns referring to illness/states:

ex. She has got a cold.

8. We use a/an to say what someone is or what job they do:

ex.

 My brother is a doctor.
 George is a student.

 My father is a car mechanic

 John is a doctor.
Mary is training to be an engineer.
He wants to be a dancer.

9. We do not use an indefinite article with plural nouns and

uncount nouns:

ex.

 She was wearing blue shoes. (= plural noun)

 She has short blonde hair. (= uncount noun)

10. Before phrases of nationality and religions

ex.
 Bruce Springsteen is an American.
 John is an Englishman.
 Kate is a Catholic.
 Ana is a Jews girl

11. With musical instruments:

ex.
 Maria was playing a violin when the visitor arrived.
(BUT to describe the activity we say, "He plays the violin.")

12. With names of days:

ex.
 I was born on a Thursday

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 13. To refer to a kind of, or example of something:

ex.
 The mouse had a tiny nose
 The elephant had a long trunk
 It was a very strange car .

14. Meaning 'one', referring to a single object or person:

ex.

 I'd like an orange and two lemons please.

 The burglar took a diamond necklace and a valuable
painting.

15. Used before number collectives and some numbers:

 A dozen
 A gallon

16. Used before a singular noun followed by a restrictive modifier:

 A girl who was wearing a yellow hat

17. Used with nouns to form adverbial phrases of quantity, amount,

or degree:

 I felt a bit depressed.

18. After there is / was / will be

ex.

 There is a book on the table.

 There was a present in the box for you.

Omission of the Article

There are no hard-and-fast rules concerning the omission of the
article. Yet the article is not used:

1. Before countable nouns in the plural without adverbs:

 ex. Women are more careful drivers than men.

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 2. Before uncountable nouns used in general sense and not
accompanied by adverbs:

ex.

 Life is hard.
 Milk is good for child.

 Macedonian is a Slav language.

3. Before personal names – names and surnames of ersons,

streets, squares, parks, countries, cities, lakes, continents:
ex.
 Ana was my mother’s name.
 Regent’s Street
 Piccadilly Circle
 Central Park
 London, Paris
 Lake Ohrid, Lake Geneva,
 England, Macedonia
 Europe, America

4. Before adjectives used as nouns referring to colour or

language:
ex.
 Blue is my favourite colour.
 She is fluent in English, German and French.
 Purple is the most beautiful colour for me.

5. With certain nouns referring to public places (as, for example,

church, college, court, hospital, market, prison, school, work,
bed, table), when we have in mind their primary function:
ex.
 Elena goes to bed very late.
 I go to church every Sunday.
 Oscar is in hospital because he is very ill.
 School is over at seven.
 She returns from work at 3 o’clock.

6. However, when we are referring to the buildings themselves,

rather than to the activities that are normally performed
there, the noun appears with the article THE:

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 ex.
 My mother is sitting on the bed.
 I went to the church to see the icons.
 I’m going to the hospital to visit my friend Pero.
 The school is not very far from my house.

7. The article is omitted with nouns referring to bus or railway

stations:
ex.
 Earl’s Court
 Victoria Station
 Euston Station

8. The article is omitted with meals used in a general sense

without an adjective:
ex.
 Dinner is served at 6.
 Breakfast is obligatory in the morning.

9. But when we think of a specific meal and when the noun is

modified by and adjectives, the noun takes an article:
ex.
 We had a very good lunch.
10.The article does not occur with nouns referring to games and
sports:

ex.
 Basketball is my favourite sport.
 I like to watch football on TV.
 Handball is an interesting sport.

11. Before pairs of nouns joined with conjuctions:

 ex. She works day and night.

12.With parts of the day containing the prepositions by and at:

ex.
 At night
 At noon
 By day
13.With nouns indicating diseases:
ex.
 She has pneumonia.

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  He has heart trouble.

14. In direct address – the vocative:

ex.
 Good morning, professor!
 Come on lads!

15. With widely used titles and with nouns referring to kinship:
ex.
 Mr. Reed, Professor Clark

16. With names of close family members:

Ex.
 mother , father, brother, sister

17. With expressions referring to travel by means of transport:

ex.
 by air , by bicycle, by boat, by bus,
 by car, by land, by plane, by sea, by ship,
 by train, by tube, on foot

18. With names of mountains, or mountains peaks, in the

singular:
ex.
 Ben Nevis, Mont Blanc, Everest, Vodno, Jablanica

19. With nouns preceded by a determiner – demonstratives (this,

that, those), possessives (my, your, his, etc…) and adjectives
referring to an unspecified quantity (some, any, no. etc…)
ex.
 This is my book.
 That woman is my teacher.
 Is there any apple left?
 Your sister is very beautiful girl.

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Summary:

In English language, an article is usually considered to be a type of

adjective In some languages, articles are a special part of speech, which
cannot easily be combined with other parts of speech. It is also possible
for articles to be part of another part of speech category such as a
determiner, an English part of speech category that combines articles and
demonstratives (such as 'this' and 'that').

In languages that employ articles, every common noun, with some

exceptions, is expressed with a certain definiteness (e.g., definite or
indefinite), just as many languages express every noun with a certain
(e.g., singular or plural). The article, if any, corresponding to its
definiteness, must accompany every noun and the lack of an article
(considered a zero article), itself specifies certain definiteness. This is in
contrast to other adjectives and determiners, which are typically optional.
This obligatory nature of articles makes them among the most common
words in many languages—in English, for example, the most frequent
word is the.

Indefinite articles typically arise from adjectives meaning one. The

English indefinite article an is derived from the same root as one. The -n
came to be dropped before consonants, giving rise to the shortened form
a.

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Bibliography:

 Thomson and Martinet “A Practical English

Grammar”

published 1969, by Audrey Jean Thomson,

A.V. Martinet

 Gramatika na angliskiot jazik: vežbi, Murgoski

Zoze., 1996
 Internet sources

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