Talk:Article (grammar)

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:47, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@PrimeBOT 40.142.175.56 (talk) 00:26, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Reduction and omission

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. 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)

Non-indoeuropean?

What about:

• the Indo-iranian languages?
• all Non-indoeuropean languages?

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)

Articles are not adjectives.

"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)

I have to disagree. Who says all adjectives must satisfy these tests?

1. Can one person be more "pregnant" than another?

2. That adverbs are hardly every applied to articles does not mean they can't be. "Smith, a—or supposedly the—leading expert, disagrees."

3. Nor can I say "The dog is my."

Among the classical parts of speech, there is clearly no better category for articles than adjective. In my grammar education, I was certainly told that articles were nothing more than a special subcategory of adjectives. In most languages, definite articles are simply demonstrative adjectives that got overused, and the two roles often continue to overlap.

--SlothMcCarty (talk) 23:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

In the traditional 8 parts of speech English classification system, articles were indeed classified as an adjective. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:35, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Partitive article

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).

After nearly nine years I have seen this question, which is still unanswered. Well, "some" is indeed sometimes used rather like a partitive article, but it is optional in these instances and the Oxford dictionary I have prefers to treat it as a determiner. I think it is best to leave it out, as it is not required. LynwoodF (talk) 20:25, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I see that "some" is mentioned in passing, but not included in the table. I think that is just about right. LynwoodF (talk) 10:47, 12 January 2018 (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)

I remembered that I have a couple of Catalan grammars by Pompeu Fabra, who could be regarded as the horse's mouth on the matter of the Catalan language. In the one aimed at the French market, he tells us, «Les articles partitifs français ne se traduisent pas en catalan.» He gives examples, such as: J'ai du pain, Tinc pa, Je vends des œufs, Venc ous. So I am going to remove the entries in respect of Catalan. LynwoodF (talk) 22:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

This article should be improved

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)

The article relates other languages' articles to those of English. This is to be expected seeing as English Wikipedia is predominantly read by L1 English speakers. I agree that there should be more written about non-European languages, but until someone who can-and-will contribute this information adds it, there is nothing to be done. Dyolf87 (talk) 15:34, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

"The" in front of the title

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)

Whoever wrote the program should have known better: it is not a new problem as some indexes in old books do the same thing and even group entries under letters of the alphabet without sorting them into order. "The father is going to market": correctness depends on the statements before and after this one, e.g. will the reader know which father is the relevant one or not?--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 13:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The but no A/An?

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)

Actually, there is a separate article on A and an. There used to be a separate article on The, but it was merged some time ago, on the grounds that Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Any objections to merging in A/An? --SlothMcCarty (talk) 18:31, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

A and an is too detailed and English-specific to be merged into this article. Nor can it be accused of being a dictionary entry. Another solution (if you're itching to restructure something) is to create a new English articles article in the English grammar series, covering both the and a(n). CapnPrep (talk) 21:11, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

After stumbling upon French articles and German articles, I'm inclined to agree, and I don't know why I didn't see it before. That would neatly solve the "worldwide view" problem too. --SlothMcCarty (talk) 07:25, 18 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)

The article has to be a word?

"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)

Even languages closer to English have such articles: Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic. The correct word, instead of word would be morpheme. ConorBrady^.ie (caint) 10:45, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Bulgarian

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)

Fix the colors in the map

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

reference 2 is a dead link — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.188.213.36 (talk) 08:27, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Article

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)

I should say "an" in casual speech, but in writing I should be inclined to rephrase the statement in order to avoid a futile argument, e.g. "...mother has a master's degree." LynwoodF (talk) 08:20, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

greek and german article

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)).

Any and Every

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)

Plural indefinite article

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)

Arabic indefinite article

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 section

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)

As a separate matter, because ancient Greek is still widely read, and unlike modern Greek, it does not have an indefinite pronoun (see foundalis.com/lan/artindef.htm for the ancient workarounds) might it be worth mentioning this, including in the Table, where those who study classical Greek, Koine Greek, etc., may notice that the Yes for the Indefinite article could misinform WP readers who don't realize there's been a change. Bob Enyart, Denver KGOV radio host (talk) 00:12, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Sindarin, Really?

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)

I have removed Sindarin from the list. Itsused (talk) 05:33, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Yet you do not protest the inclusion of Esperanto or Interlingua? – Dyolf87 (talk) 15:36, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Regarding map in "Variation among languages"

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)

Regarding Anglian "an" and Saxon "on"

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)

Some serious inconsistencies

“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)

I removed the sentence which says “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. This is in contrast to other determiners and adjectives, which are typically optional.” until someone clarifies this. Itsused (talk) 12:36, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Papiamento

@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)

I have now altered the entry. LynwoodF (talk) 16:28, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Inconsistencies regarding numbered indefinite articles

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)

Welsh article "non-gendered"? Really?

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)

I agree with you whole-heartedly. Even though the form of the article is unchanged, the fact that the article triggers the soft mutation in feminine singular nouns, but not in masculine nouns, amounts to gendering in my view. LynwoodF (talk) 16:08, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

I have changed it so that it more accurately reflects the situation with the Welsh def. article. – Dyolf87 (talk) 08:56, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for this. I see you have linked to the article on Colloquial Welsh morphology, but the phenomenon also occurs in Literary Welsh. However, it would be awkward to try to link to the two separate pages, and so perhaps you have done the most sensible thing. LynwoodF (talk) 10:27, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Colloquial Welsh is Welsh. The Literary language is a very conservative form of the language reserved only for literary purposes and contains many features which have since been lost in the spoken language. The colloquial language is the language of everyday speech and is thus "proper Welsh" rather than the archaic, arguably pretentious, literary standard which sits somewhere between Middle Welsh and Modern Welsh. It is for this reason that I changed the link. – Dyolf87 (talk) 09:58, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

That is a good point. I thought you might have a good reason for changing the link. LynwoodF (talk) 12:16, 10 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)

You are right. I found this website and in this section the case inflections are shown in detail. I will see what I can do about the table in the article. LynwoodF (talk) 15:29, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

I have now changed the entry in the table. LynwoodF (talk) 15:41, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Excellent! Thank you very much. - 89.160.178.26 (talk) 12:51, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for spotting an error and teaching me something I didn't know. LynwoodF (talk) 16:17, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

No article

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)

Well "no" is certainly used as a determiner and, in constructions where it could be replaced by "not any", I think it is reasonable to call it a negative article. LynwoodF (talk) 17:43, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Articles in Southern Russian dialects?

@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)

I have now had a look at the source suggested by Yoshiciv and have found that it does not clearly support the contention, so I have decided to remove the edit. Moreover, the following words apply to Bulgarian and Macedonian, but not necessarily to any Russian dialect.

To clarify my stance on this point, I would mention that I researched the matter of suffixed definite articles in Scandinavia and the Balkan Sprachbund and found convincing evidence of the influence of languages in contact with the subject languages (Finno-Ugric in Scandinavia and Turkic in the Balkans). The use of suffixed definite articles in Northern Russian dialects was attributed to contact with Finno-Ugric languages.

LynwoodF (talk) 16:13, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I somehow stupidly mistook the Southern Dialect for the Northern Dialect. Thank you for correction! Actually, how about adding the description about the Northern Dialect? I’d like to know your opinion.Yoshiciv (talk) 17:22, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Hello, Yoshiciv. Thank you for your reply. Actually, I added a brief mention of the Northern Dialects a few minutes ago. I thought it was worth noting that there were Russian dialects with definite articles. I find it interesting that they are similar to the articles in Bulgarian and Macedonian, despite having developed independently. LynwoodF (talk) 17:39, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The Donald and The Gipper are not good examples.

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)

Persian

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)

Sameerhameedy, I don't know sufficient about the language to know whether you are right, but I notice at Persian_grammar#Articles that there is a difference between the written and spoken usage. Are those words used informally as definite articles? LynwoodF (talk) 10:44, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Icelandic

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)

You are right, but, as I understand it, the free-standing article is something of a fossil, surviving only in a few special circumstances.

I found this in the WP article on Icelandic grammar:

"The independent or free-standing definite article (not attached to the noun as a suffix) exists in Icelandic in the form hinn. It is mostly used in poetry and irregularly elsewhere (there are hardly any rules for the latter case; it is mainly a matter of taste)."

LynwoodF (talk) 23:34, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Why are articles called articles?

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)

Remove Esperanto and Toki Pona from main typological table

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)