What are Determiners and Types of Determiners in English: In actual Determiners are the modifiers of nouns. Determiners have their own importance in any sentence or in learning English grammar. But most of the teachers just leave them or teach sometimes incorrectly. Determiners help us to know whom we are talking about. Articles are the most common determiners in English grammar. But determiners are not just restricted to Articles, there are many other types of determiners too that we are going to discus in this post.
What are Determiners and Types of Determiners in English
This post is all about What are Determiners and Types of Determiners in English. I hope it will help you in understanding determiners.
What are Determiners in English?
Words that change in some manner the nouns with which they used are called Determiners.
The main function of determiners is to clarify or simply what a noun is referring to.
Sometimes the type of determiners depends upon the types of noun.
Lets us take an example to make it clearer.
That book is very interesting to read.
Here we have used “that book” it means we are clarifying that which book we are referring to.
For example
- This park is really beautiful. Demonstrative Determiners
- Her study table is always full of books. Possessive Determiners
- A farmer is working inside the field. Article Determiners
- She has little knowledge about driving. Quantifier Determiners
- I want to be a doctor. Article Determiners
- That orange is rotten. Demonstrative Determiners
- I came first in the drawing competition. Ordinal Determiners
- I take one apple daily in breakfast. Numerical Determiners
In All the above the examples, bold words this, little, a, that, first, one, her are determiners.
Types of Determiners In English
There are five basic types of determiners that are discussed below.
| Article Determiners |
| Demonstrative Determiners |
| Possessive Determiners |
| Numeral Determiners |
| Quantitative Determiners |
- Article Determiners
There are three kinds of article determiners a, an and the. These can be further divided in two parts Indefinite and Definite articles.
Examples:
- A boy is playing in the garden.
- We are having an orange.
- I am going to write an article tomorrow.
- The Indians are really very hard working.
Let us discus their types
| Indefinite | A, An |
| Definite | The |
Indefinite:-A is used before that singular noun which starts from consonant sound.
For example
- A parrot, a boy.
- A useful guide, a European lady.
An is used before that singular noun which starts from vowel sound.
For example
- An orange, an
- An p, an s.d.o.
Definite :- The is used to refer any person or thing .
For example
- I like the mango of Allahabad.
- He has lost the book I gave him yesterday.
- Demonstrative Determiners
This, that, these and those are Demonstrative determiners. These are used to specify the position on any object from the subject’s point of view.
This or that are used with singular noun and these or those are used with plural noun.
For example
- This book is mine.
- These clothes are ours.
- I do not like that
- Those notes are yours.
- Possessive Determiners
They come before nouns and repreents the relation or possession. My, our, your, his, her, their and its are Possessive Determiners. These pronouns are of Possessive case.
Possessive determiners are used to specify who a object belongs to.
For example
- Her clothes are very neat and clean.
- Our class students are very helping and caring.
- Your brother is too young to take this responsibility.
- My father is very honest and loving.
- Numeral Determiners
There are three types of Numerals determiners.
| Definite | One, two, three, First, second, both etc |
| Indefinite | Some ,many, few ,all several types |
| Distributive | Each, every neither ,either |
Definite Numeral:-It is used to represent certain numbers
For example
- He has two
- The first girl in the second row is my cousin.
Indefinite Numeral:-It is used to represent uncertain numbers
For example
- There are some notes on the table.
- Many girls are absent today.
- I have read few
- She gave me all the grapes.
Distributive Numeral:- It is used to represent a group people or thing.
- Every human being on the earth dies.
- Each boy likes to play game.
- Neither plan will work for sure.
- Quantitative Determiners
These determiners are used to indicate the quantity. Some, any, No, Much, More, Less, little and many are quantitative determiners.
For examples
- There is still much water in the lake.
- Some boys are playing in the top floor.
- I don’t have any answer for your question.
- Emma has no sense how to talk with others.
- The hope for the success is little.
- You had made many mistakes in past days.
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