Table Of ContentPRACTICE
MAKES
PERFECT®
English
Articles and
Determiners
Up Close
Also by Mark Lester
Practice Makes Perfect: English Verb Tenses Up Close
Practice Makes Perfect: Advanced English Grammar for ESL Learners
Th e Big Book of English Verbs
McGraw-Hill’s Essential ESL Grammar
McGraw-Hill’s Essential English Irregular Verbs
English Grammar Drills
Th e McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage (with Larry Beason)
PRACTICE
M A K E S
PERFECT®
™
®
English
Articles and
Determiners
Up Close
Mark Lester, PhD
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Contents
Preface vii
I ARTICLES
1 An introduction to articles 2
Four types of articles 2
Categories of nouns 4
Singular count nouns, plural count nouns, and noncount nouns 6
Distinguishing between count and noncount nouns 9
2 The defi nite article the 22
The pronunciation of the 22
The meaning and use of the 27
3 The singular indefi nite article a/an 34
A versus an 34
The meaning and use of the singular indefi nite article a/an 36
A summary of indefi nite article uses 41
4 The indefi nite article some 44
Idiomatic uses of the indefi nite article some 45
The meaning and use of some 46
The some/any question rule 48
The some/any negative statement rule 50
Other some/any rules 54
v
5 The zero article 61
Zero article, defi nite articles, and indefi nite articles 61
Present-tense forms 63
Adverbs of frequency 64
6 Summary of article usage 66
The defi nite article the 66
The singular indefi nite article a/an 67
The indefi nite article some 68
The zero article, (cid:2) 72
II DETERMINERS
7 An introduction to determiners 76
Comparative and superlative forms 78
Ability to function as pronouns 80
Word order 82
8 Defi nite determiners 85
Demonstrative determiners 85
Possessive determiners 87
9 Quantifi ers 93
A few / few; a little / little 93
A lot of 100
All / all (of) the 101
Many / much 103
Review of quantifi ers 105
Answer key 109
vi Contents
Preface
Th is book focuses on the meaning and use of a large and important class of pre-adjective
noun modifi ers: articles and determiners. Th is book is unique in that it deals only with
this one special group of noun modifi ers. Consequently, it is able to provide a much greater
in-depth treatment than would be possible in a more conventional grammar book that
also covers a hundred other topics. While many of the topics and issues covered will be
familiar to you, the depth and detail of the coverage will address many issues that will be
totally new to you.
Th is book is intended for advanced English learners. It assumes that you are comfort-
able with a college-level English vocabulary. Th e grammatical vocabulary, however, is
quite ordinary. Th e terms used in this book are ones that you have been using since high
school.
Th e book contains a number of short exercises, all with answers provided in the
Answer key. Th e purpose of the exercises is for you to test your own understanding of a
concept or to practice a particular skill or technique. Th ese exercises are important as a
way for you to ensure that what you have studied has really been learned. It is all too easy
to have a passive understanding of the material without realizing that you are dependent
on the support provided by the instruction material.
Th is book has two goals, one obvious and one not so obvious. Th e fi rst and most
obvious goal is to help you use articles and determiners correctly. Articles and determiners
are some of the most diffi cult words for nonnative speakers to use correctly. Since they are
also some of the most frequently used words in English, the opportunity for nonnative
speakers to make mistakes with them is nearly unlimited.
A substantial portion of the text is devoted to a second goal: helping you understand
the sometimes quite subtle implications in the way native speakers use articles and deter-
miners, especially in informal, conversational settings. Accordingly, much of the book
deals with issues of usage—exploring the consequences of diff erent stylistic choices in the
ways we use articles and determiners.
Th ere are two main components. Part I deals with each category of article in turn.
Historically, grammar books recognized only two articles: the indefi nite article a/an and
the defi nite article the. However, we will add two additional articles: some/any (which we
will treat as a unit) and the zero article, (cid:2). (A zero article is the option of choosing to have
no overt article where one would normally be expected. Here is a sentence with two zero
articles: (cid:2) Onions give me (cid:2) indigestion.)
vii
Part II deals with determiners, which are a large and heterogeneous group of pre-
adjective noun modifi ers that “determine” which noun is being talked about. Th ere are
two main types of determiners: defi nite determiners and quantifi ers. Defi nite determiners
serve to defi ne or specify the noun modifi ed by the determiners. Here are some examples
of defi nite determiners:
Demonstrative determiners: this, that, these, those
Possessive determiners: my, our, your, his, her, its, their
Quantifi ers are determiners that specify the quantity or amount of the noun being
modifi ed. Here are some typical examples of quantifi ers: all, some, much, many, few, little,
and so on.
Quantifi ers account for a disproportionately large number of errors for native and
nonnative speakers alike. Quantifi ers are extremely sensitive to the distinction between
count and noncount nouns, for example we say “many problems” because “problems” is a
count noun, but “much confusion” because “confusion” is a noncount noun.
viii Preface
