Determiners

Determiners form a class of words that occur in the left-most position inside noun phrases. They thus precede nouns, as well as any adjectives that may be present.

The most common determiners are the and a/an (these are also called the definite aticle and indefinite article).

Here are some more determiners:

• any taxi
• that question
• those apples
• this paper
• some apple
• whatever taxi
• whichever taxi

As these examples show, determiners can have various kinds of 'specifying' functions. For example, they can help us to identify which person or thing the noun refers to. So, if in a conversation with you I talk about that man you will know who I am talking about. In the following examples the determiners specify a quantity:

• all examples
• both parents
• many people
• each person
• every night
• several computers
• few excuses
• enough water
• no escape

Be aware that the following items belong to the class of pronouns when they occur on their own (e.g. I like this very much), but when they occur before nouns (e.g. this book) they belong to both the determiner and pronoun classes:

• this/that
• these/those

What about possessive my, your, his/her, our, and their when they occur before nouns, as in my book, her bicycle?

The National Curriculum Glossary has examples like her book in the entries for ‘possessive’, ‘pronoun' and ‘determiner’, which seems to suggest that they belong to both classes, i.e. deteminer and pronoun. In our grammar videos (https://www.youtube.com/user/engliciousgrammar), especially videos 2 and 3, we hedge our bets and say that her belongs to both classes, i.e. it’s both a determiner and a pronoun, because this is what then NC seems to be claiming. (See also 'Advanced'.) However, in the GPS tests for KS1 and KS2 it is always assumed that these words are determiners, not pronouns, despite what it says in the glossary.

The words mine, yours, his/hers, ours and theirs (e.g.That phone is mine) occur on their own and we take them to be pronouns.

Determiners can sometimes be modified themselves, usually by a preceding modifier, examples being [almost every] night and [very many] people.

Here are some more words acting as determiners. These examples are drawn directly from the ICE-GB corpus. Refreshing your screen will produce a new list of examples. Which noun does each determiner point at, and what does each determiner tell us about the noun?

• Haven’t you got any more glass out there at all _{[S1A-007 #83]}
• uhm I knew that someone said it actually happened in the swimming pool but Miss Hoffmann ’s leg was obviously in a mess and we were trying to look after her rather than get all the details together  _{[S1B-067 #157]}
• Therefore if you if you whiz your Ed your boring Edam presumably down through France nip it into Andorra you ’ve gone outside the E E C I think because Andorra is not officially part of the E E C  _{[S1A-061 #338]}
• I paid £5.00, in October, to join your society in anticipation of receiving your assistance in arranging this trip. _{[W1B-026 #135]}
• What you ’re saying is that we ’ve established a purely local stratigraphy which such as you ’ve established in your own areas in your mapping projects for example _{[S1B-006 #180]}
• it is the content of the substantive rules which determines ‘relevance’ (‘relevance’, of course, as understood for legal purposes). _{[W2A-007 #81]}
• It ’s covered in a driveway _{[S1B-074 #181]}
• And Indurain and Greg Lemond back in at the main peleton _{[S2A-016 #39]}
• First, Iraq launched inaccurate Soviet-made missiles at centres of civilian population both in Saudi Arabia and in Israel, a non-combatant nation. _{[W2E-001 #10]}
• One of the most vital tasks for the victor will be to reunite the party round an agreed European policy, for only then will the authority of the British Prime Minister be repaired. _{[W2E-004 #7]}

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