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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2019 and 11 December 2019. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Bcuteri.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 14:47, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
I've removed the following section:
The article is omitted in prepositional phrases that refer to traveling to places where a change in social behaviors is required. citation needed Hence the pattern "Mary had a little lamb. ... It followed her to school one day" (rather than "to the school") is standard, as is "I'll see you in court" (rather than "in the court"). Most English speakers say "in town" but "in the city". All English speakers say "go to college"; British speakers will also say "go to university" and "go to hospital" (for American speakers, it is "go to the hospital"). These phrases are a matter of custom rather than following clear rule.
In fact, there is continuing debate over the use and semantics of noun phrases with articles. It is more customary to consider the article as 'not used' rather than 'omitted' in these cases, as claiming that something is 'omitted' is to make wider claims about the grammatical system that are far from easy to substantiate. The reason for not using an article is not so much that a change of behaviour is required, as claimed above, but more that the noun phrase under the scope of the article is referred to as an institution as opposed to a particular place. "I'll see you in court" for a court case as opposed to "I'll see you in the court" because this is where we are meeting next. Also, I study "at university" (institution), but left my jacket "in the university" (location). Exceptions, as usual, seem to be the rule, as e.g. "I went to the police station" is used in both senses.
as I consider the initial claim to be dubious (though with no evidence) and the following paragraph disputing it should not appear in the article itself. I'll leave it to more learned grammarians to decide what's true and what's not, but with this section in place the article was self-contradictory. Dave.Dunford ( talk) 17:53, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
What about:
Considering semantics the grammatical article transfers very little information, than just a repetition meaning "aforementioned", so it would be interesting to know how and whether definiteness is extensively used in other languages than the European ones (including Arabic), or if it is just an Esperantean lalalalala malhabitus. ... said: Rursus ( bork²) 08:04, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
"They can be also thought of as a special kind of adjective, because they combine with a noun and contribute to the meaning of the noun phrase." False! Articles fail several syntactic tests for adjectivehood: 1. They cannot be quantified or compared. One thing cannot be more "the" or "a' than another. 2. Adverbs cannot be applied to them. 3. They cannot be predicates: something cannot be "the." I'm going in and deleting that sentence. 24.21.85.69 ( talk) 15:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
The article says "there is no partitive article in English", yet http://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/gr/det5.html, http://www.thefrenchexperiment.com/learn-french/partitive-article.php and various other sources seem happy that "some" is a partitive article. Is that a minority view, or should it be mentioned here? 86.161.42.191 ( talk) 21:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC).
I now have a new query. Does Catalan really have a true partitive article, in the same way as French and Italian do? I think not, but perhaps there is someone out there more knowledgeable about Catalan than I am. My old tutor, Prof. Paul Russell-Gebbett, could have told us, but, sadly he is long gone. However, this website bears out my contention. LynwoodF ( talk) 20:25, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
There is mentioned almoust exclusively european languages, and not mentioned non european. Alsou, this article are more about articles in english language, than about articles in general. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.148.159.114 ( talk) 07:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
More and more lately, I've been seeing websites where they list titles of things beginning with "The" under "T", even when the following word begins with a different letter (The Smashing Pumpkins, "The Legend of Zelda"). I don't know if they dropped that rule or not, or if it's just a weird thing the program does, or if the users just don't remember the rule, but I was taught ages ago that "The" should be ignored if it's at the beginning and the item should be listed under the letter of the next word. Sometimes ", the" ends up being put at the end("Wizard of Oz, the"). This should also go for "A" and "An", also being articles. Examples: http://www.ocremix.org/t/ http://www.lyrics.com/index.php/artists/start/th/800 It's really driving me crazy, trying to find something under S and finding out it's under T for the wrong reason.. Should this be mentioned somewhere on this page, or just dropped altogether? Thanks. ChrisRJ ( talk) 17:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
i want to know about this sentences (the father is going to market)is correct or not —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.94.61.81 ( talk) 05:47, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Most of the article is currently under a section for The, yet there is no corresponding section for A/An. Why the disparity? I'm going to check the archives in case someone just deleted it, and if I don't find anything I'll add the section.-- SlothMcCarty ( talk) 23:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
There are the, a(n), and possibly one (implying directly that there is a single unit) in the English language. Komitsuki ( talk) 09:04, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
"An article (abbreviated art) is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun" is not correct. Languages such as Bulgarian do have article system, but articles there are not separate words like "The", or "Das". The article in Bulgarian is a suffix added to the word which varies depending on gender and number: Мъж (man) becomes Мъжът (The man). Dahhak ( talk) 22:11, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
The information about Bulgarian is not quite accurate: Bulgarian has indefinite and definite articles, which are both postfixed (I can give [1] as a source, but it's in Bulgarian). So, "indefinite and postfixed definite articles" should be more appropriate, although it's not 100 % accurate, but better than "only postfixed definite articles" which means it has no indefinite articles at all! For example: "stol" (chair) - "stola" (a chair) - "stolat" (the chair). 84.179.22.170 ( talk) 12:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Please disambiguate the colors in the map. Shades of purple are very near shades of blue, and can be hard to discern. 4.154.248.67 ( talk) 11:20, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
reference 2 is a dead link — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.188.213.36 ( talk) 08:27, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
fill in with the article Father is a graduate and mother is __________ M.Sc. holder — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.148.62.14 ( talk) 05:03, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
An St.Rahul Dhaniya ( talk) 16:42, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
Each language has three genders and four cases and in the singular there is a certain amount of 'similarity', but this largely disppears in the plural ( Pamour ( talk) 10:40, 24 June 2012 (UTC)).
If "some" is considered a "partitive article" and "no" is considered a "negative" article, then surely "any" and "every" should also be considered some sort of article. BigSteve ( talk) 11:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Hello,
Would it please be possible to include a more detailed description of the articles for some of languages which are referred to on this Wikipedia article, since that at present their descriptions are quite partial ones, and could therefor be misleading ?
I noticed this lack of detail in regard of the following languages : Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic.
Apart of that, then in the case of the English language :
Would it please be possible for someone to provide a passage which details the different context of using a stressed "A", as well as an unstressed "A", when they are used as variations in pronunciation of an indefinite article in English ?
And on a different matter, then in regard of Hebrew : this article mentions Hebrew on several occasions ; however, when it gives an example of the definite article which is to be found in Hebrew, then it fails to mention that it realized by some several audible variations, which can be found in more than one variation of this language ; following below are a few examples : 1.) Standard Modern Israeli Hebrew features a number of written variations, with at least two of them having distinct pronunciations ( i.e., "Ha", as opposed to "Hey" ). 2.) Traditional Ashkenazi Jewish pronunciation of Hebrew may posses even more variations which are audible, further to the ones which might be written but not pronounced according to its conventions ( e.g. : "Ha", "Ho"/"Hu", "Hey/Hye", e.t.c. ). 3.)the Hebrew language which is hypothesized to have been spoken a few thousands of years ago in the historical kingdoms of Judea and Israel, might have included more variations of pronunciation for the definite article of this language, as proposed by some scholars.
Could someone please include some reference to these matters on this article, since at present it does mention Hebrew on one hand, but it only includes a partial description of its definite article, which in turn may result in an inaccurate impression.
Thanks in advance,
Thanks in advance, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.66.110.52 ( talk) 03:53, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
The WP article discusses the concept of plural indefinite articles and gives the English word some as an example. However, it lacks a citation supporting this definition. I marked that paragraph as needing citation. I did so because the entry for indefinite article in Oxford English Dictionary does not include plurals:
a determiner (a and an in English) that introduces a noun phrase and implies that the thing referred to is nonspecific (as in she bought me a book; government is an art; he went to a public school). Typically, the indefinite article is used to introduce new concepts into a discourse. Compare with definite article.
-- Ed Brey ( talk) 21:24, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
Classical and Modern Standard Arabic do have an indefinite article, it's the -an or -un suffix
al-sayyaara(tu) (ُالسيارة) the car --- sayyaaratun (سيارةٌ) a car
Garudamon11 ( talk) 15:40, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
Greek lists the nominative and accusative forms of the definite articles. Should it also list the genitive forms (although not quite the same thing, French lists the partitive article)? And does οι need to be repeated for masculine and feminine, given that les in the French section is not? — 91.238.123.116 ( talk) 14:18, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Is this article a joke or a serious one? What is the purpose to include Sindarin in this important topic? Vagr7 ( talk) 23:03, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
The legend for the map indicates that Icelandic only has suffixed definitive articles, which is incorrect. Icelandic also has independent definitive articles, which can be used given a certain set of circumstances, and often sounds formal and/or poetic. This would be hinn (masculine) hin (feminine) and hið (neuter). To use the independent definitive article, one must insert an adjective in between the article and the noun: hinn góði maður (the good man), hin góða kona (the good woman), hið góða barn (the good child). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.213.157.254 ( talk) 22:21, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware, an to one is just normal development; long a's usually became /ɔː/ and were often spelled o_e or oa in Middle English and this has nothing to do with dialect; for example, bāt > boat, nān > none, gāst > ghost, hāl > whole, and in this case, ān > one. Can anyone source the claim about dialects? 173.84.15.238 ( talk) 18:23, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
“In some languages that do have articles, like for example some North Caucasian languages, the use of articles is optional but in others like English and German it is mandatory in all cases.” – Variation among languages
“Every noun must be accompanied by the article corresponding to its definiteness, and the lack of an article (considered a zero article) itself specifies a certain definiteness.” – Head paragraph
There is probably a very serious problem with how definitions are used throughout this article. Is zero article considered an article or not? Itsused ( talk) 12:21, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
@ Blonkm: I was surprised that you claim that Papiamento has no indefinite article, but does have a partitive article. I understand you live in an area where the language is spoken and so I am loath to suggest that you are entirely wrong about this. However, I decided to look at some texts and found that un was being used as an indefinite article, but there was no evidence whatever of a partitive article. I then went to this translation site and asked for a translation of Please give me bread and an orange. Here is the translation I was given (unedited): fabor duná mi pan í un orañe. Would you like to comment on these points? Incidentally, I found di being used for of, but not in the context of a partitive article. LynwoodF ( talk) 14:12, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
In the table "Variations of articles in definiteness and inflection", the column "Numbered" distinguishes between "Yes", "No", and "Yes (if definite)". It lists English as "No", German as "Yes", and Dutch as "Yes (if definite)".
All three of these languages, however, use the null article for indefinite plural. Dutch and German both have numbered definite articles - English doesn't. So, if the null article for plural counts as having numbered articles, the correct labels should be: English: Yes (if indefinite), German: Yes, Dutch: Yes. If the null article doesn't count, then the correct labels should be: English: No, German: Yes (if definite), Dutch: Yes (if definite). DerManiac ( talk) 08:31, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
The Welsh definite article is listed as "non-gendered", but considering that feminine singular nouns undergo consonant mutation after the article would suggest that this is gendered. Ci ('dog' [masc.]) is y ci ('the dog') but cath ('cat' [fem.]) becomes y gath ('the cat'), etc. – Dyolf87 ( talk) 15:35, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
On a similar note, the Icelandic definite article is incorrectly listed as non-case inflected. When an Icelandic noun with a suffixed definite article is inflected, both the noun itself (i.e. without the article) and the article suffix change form according to the case. Example: hesturinn ('the horse' [nom.]), hestinum ('the horse' [dat.]). In fact, most of the forms listed for the Icelandic article are due to case inflection. So, unless I am misunderstanding the concept, the Icelandic definite article is definitely case-inflected. -
89.160.178.26 (
talk) 10:42, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Is it really true that in enlish, the adverb "no" can be thought of as an article, like "kein" in German? When I say "no person has ever done something before", is that "no" really an article? -- Bageense (disc.) 17:13, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@ Yoshiciv: I am aware that there are suffixed definite articles in some Northern Russian dialects and that they are similar to those found in Bulgarian and Macedonian, but I have not heard of articles in Southern Russian dialects. Would you please review your edit. LynwoodF ( talk) 10:29, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
Both of these nicknames are rooted in the perceived or imagined quality uniqueness. To recap what I just wrote in my edit, "The Donald" implies that Trump is uniquely important among all people named Donald, while "The Gipper" suggests an imagined verb that means "to be George Gipp" and so "The Gipper" is "the one who Gipps".
I left those examples alone, but added an example of how the grammatical rule changes if there is an adjective before the name, e.g. "*The Lionel waited..." is ungrammatical but "The great Lionel waited..." is grammatical.
I think the Donald and Gipper examples should be removed, but I don't want to do that without offering it for discussion.
(Note: In linguistics, it is standard practice to mark ungrammatical utterances with an asterisk.) Pithecanthropus4152 ( talk) 05:42, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Sorry but این and آن translate as "this" and "that", i'm not sure that's the same thing as "the" in English. I think آن can also mean "it", but I still don't think that's the same. Sameerhameedy ( talk) 21:37, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
Icelandic has both an attached definite article (as a suffix) as well as an unattached definite article. The article (and map) is wrong to suggest that there is only an attached definite article in the form of a suffix in Icelandic. The name of the Icelandic literary society, for example, contains an unattached definite article (Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag). 89.160.209.172 ( talk) 17:25, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Write an article on the best day of my life — Preceding unsigned comment added by TeeBoy123 ( talk • contribs) 07:47, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
I was born on 27/11/1995 in unguwan sarki Bulkachuwa word, katagum LGA of Bauchi state and I joined gamawa nursery school 1999, later I joined central primary school Gamawa in 2001-2007, goes to Government Science secondary school Darazo in 2007- 2010 and I also goes to General Hassan Usman Katsina Unity college Bauchi 2010-2013, obtained certificate of Computer operator from Hadakai training center Jos 2014, obtained certificate of Computer software from Google 2019, I also joined the Bauchi state university gadau 2017-2020. Goes to my NYSC in Gombe state specialist hospital Gombe in 2020-2021. I served as assistant public health officer at general hospital azare as an during my industrial attachment 2018-2019, assistant public health officer at katagum LGA secretariat department of health during my internship 2019-2020, volunteer at Red cross Nigeria gombe branch and also a public health officer at camp clinic during NYSC orientation camp at temporary orientation camp malam sidi, Gombe state 2021, assistant Environmental health officer at Gombe state specialist hospital Gombe 2021-2021,and a volunteer as community mobilizer on health and it's related at katagum LGA secretariat department of health 2021-2022. A seller and also a customer care at L.A Gbadamosi company of Nigeria gombe, Also attended a webinar on Institute of African higher education research and innovation {IAHERI}. Which is the 1st international webinar on repositioning higher education research for institutional sustainable and development held on Saturday 20th august, 2022 at Maryam abacha university Kano. Mu'azu Uzairu Liyo ( talk) 14:11, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
Why not call them lekadoodles? To wit, what is the etymology of the word article as used in the sense of this, rather long, ahem, article? N0w8st8s ( talk) 01:36, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
It doesn’t make sense to include constructed languages in the table “ Variations of articles in definiteness and inflection among major languages”. Including conlangs in typological data alongside natural languages doesn’t have scientific merit, since the factors that lead to typological features in natural language are completely different from the deliberate metalinguistic choices in designing conlangs.
The passage afterward about constructed languages is also a largely irrelevant tangent about the history and motivations of conlangs. I think that both elements can be distilled into a single concise section about articles in constructed languages, if it’s even necessary.
Edetone (
talk) 05:01, 7 October 2023 (UTC)