Determiners

Articles

Read the passage and spot the articles a, an, and the. When are these articles used?

A boy walked into an empty house. The house was well furnished. There was food on the dining table. The boy walked up to the table and took an apple. The apple was not sweet, so he put the half-eaten apple in the dustbin.

'A' / 'An' are used when an object is not specific and is first introduced.

Examples:

A boy

we don't know.

Which boy?

An empty house we don't know.

Which house is empty?

An

is used before vowel sounds.

A is used before consonants.

'A' / 'An'

change to 'the' when the object becomes specific.

A boy becomes - The boy

An

apple becomes - The apple

It is the dining table because it refers specifically to that particular table and not to any other table.

Look at the following pairs of sentences. Decide why the definite article the is used in some cases, but not in others.

a) I like music.

No article is used because it refers to music in general.

b) The music is bad.

The

is used because it refers to specific music; i.e., the music which is being played at the moment.

Use of 'the' before geographical terms

• The is used before names of mountain ranges e.g., The Alps, The Andes, The Nilgiris, The Himalayas etc.
  
  
• The is not used before the names of mountains. Mount Abu, Mount K2, Nanda Devi, Mount Everest etc.
  
  
• The is not used before cities. Patna, Mumbai, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar etc.
  
  
• The is not used before countries like England, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, but the is used before countries which have names like Republic, Union, United etc. e.g., The Republic of China, The United States of America, The Russian Federation, etc.
  
  
• The is used before rivers e.g., The Ganga, The Brahmaputra, The Gomti, The Kaveri, etc.
  
  
• The is not used before lakes e.g., Lake Superior, Dal Lake, Michigan, Lake Ontario etc.