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?

• However; Adomnan himself admits to leaving out ‘some unfamiliar words of the Irish tonge tongue, a poor language, designations of men or names of tribes and places’. _{[W1A-002 #8]}
• Obtaining its authority for military action is of great importance. _{[W2C-008 #120]}
• The Senior tutor to General Course students has general responsibility for the arrangements for students in this category. _{[W2D-007 #77]}
• And and while we wait for them to come down towards us from the Mansion House they ’ll be coming in a few moments time to recall perhaps the fact that there has been some debate about this parade  _{[S2A-019 #1]}
• Florenda Maria is now a local heroine. _{[W2C-002 #64]}
• Sometimes we just have to sit there unable to help people involved in an accident.” _{[W2C-009 #92]}
• Unlike some husbands, Will is always chatty over breakfast, since he buys his daily newspaper at the station and reads it on the train. _{[W2F-019 #61]}
• The subject of sexual abuse, which has only very recently been brought to the public ’s attention, can be seen in the same way. _{[W2B-017 #44]}
• and you can absolutely identify that particular target _{[S1B-038 #48]}
• In this This shows that one is trying to maintain a constant internal environment in the face of a continued changing external environment. _{[W1A-017 #128]}

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