Determiners in English
Determiners in English are one of the important structures and often appear in English tests. Therefore, let's learn about structures and how to use them in English with EnglishTopVN!
1. Concepts
- Determiners is a word that comes before a noun or a noun phrase and before an adjective. Therefore, the determiner cannot stand alone but must be followed by a noun or a noun phrase.
- Determiners or demonstrative words are words that are often placed before definite nouns to refer to a specific or special person/event/thing that you are referring to.
2. Classification
| Type of determiner | Listed |
For example |
| - Article | a, an, the |
The I saw a girl last night. |
| - Indicative determiners | this, that, these, those |
Look at these flowers! |
| - Possessive determiners | my, his, her, your, our, their, its |
My father works at a big insurance company. |
| - From only numbers | all, every, most, many, much, some, few, little, any, no… |
We don’t have much money. We don’t have many eggs. |
| - Number of words | one, two, three, first, second, third,….. |
I ordered two cakes. She won third prize. |
| - From the term Doubt | whose, which, what |
Whose car did you borrow? Which books have you read? |
3. How to use determiners
3.1. Article
- Articles are the most common determiners.
- Contains 3 words: a, an, the
- Articles are divided into two types: definite and indefinite articles.
|
Indefinite article |
Definite article |
|
|
Use with |
Singular noun |
For all nouns (singular, plural, countable and uncountable) |
|
Use when |
The listener/speaker does not know anything about the object being talked about or only knows in general terms |
When the speaker/listener already knows who the person is talking about |
|
For example |
He met a girl last night. |
The girl is kind and lovely. The red wine. |
3.2. Indicative determiners
Demonstrative determiners are used to indicate how far or close someone is to the speaker.
Contains 4 words: this, that, these, those
|
Near the |
Shah |
|
| Singular |
This |
That |
| Many |
These |
Those |
For example:
- I like this color.
-
That man over there looks scary.
-
These books belong to mine.
- Can you see those buildings?
3.3. Possessive determiners
Possessive determiners, aka Positive adjectives, used to indicate that someone is “own" something.
- Contains 7 words: my, your, his, her, its, our, their
For example:
-
We sold our house last week.
-
Your wish is my commend.
-
Her dress is from the latest collection.
Attention:
+ Do not confuse Possessive Determiners, also known as Possessive Adjectives, with Possessive Pronouns.
+ Distinguishing ITS from IT'S (= IT + IS):Eg:
-
The cat licks its fur.
-
It’s raining. = It is raining.
-
Look at the train! It’s comming. = It is comming
3.4. From only numbers
- Quantity words are words that describe the quantity of a noun phrase.
| Only used with countable nouns |
Only used with uncountable nouns |
Used for both types of nouns |
|
- a few - a number of - several - many - a majority of - every … |
- a little … |
- all- a bit of - a lot of / lots of - no / none - not any - plenty of - any - some … |
For example:
- I buy every book from this author.
-
All students from this school passed the entrance exam.
-
She had no money.
3.5. Determiner: Enough
Enough
- Formula used with the word Enough: Enough + noun
- In case “enough” is an adverb, we have the following formula:
Adjective / Adverb / Verb + Enough
For example:
- There are enough chairs for everyone here. → noun “chair”
- I hadn’t trained enough for the job. → verb “train”
- This house isn’t big enough for us. → adjective “big”
- We didn’t leave early enough. → adverb “early”
3.6. Number of words
- Includes counting numbers and ordinal numbers:
+ Count: one, two, three,….
For example:
-
There are about two hundred (200) people on the street.
-
He has just made his second score.
-
The first three people who answer correctly will get a present.
3.7. Interrogative determiner
- Contains 3 words: which, what, whose
.+ Whose used to express the idea of "belonging to someone". Whose often used in sentences related to Relative Clauses– Relative pronouns.
+ What Used to ask for specific information about something.
+ Which also used to ask for specific information about something, but from a fixed set. (the questioner had a certain number of options and asked the listener which one he liked)
For example:
-
What sports do you like?
-
Which dress do you like? The red one or the green one?
-
Whose iPhone was stolen?
3.8. Determiners indicate difference
- There are 3 qualifiers that indicate difference.
That is: another, other và the other.
- How to use:
+ Another: used to refer to something different from, or in addition to, something previously mentioned
Used with singular nouns.
-
Would you like another cup of coffee?
→ 1 more cup of coffee
-
Another reason to reject his offer is….
→ One more reason is…
+ Other: used to refer to something different from what was previously mentioned
Used with plural nouns
-
I have no other ideas.
→ other comments
-
There are other jobs you could try.
→ other work
+ The other: used to refer to the remaining item(s) in the previously mentioned item(s).
Used with singular or plural nouns
-
I enjoyed the first book but I didn’t read the other books in the series.
→ the remaining books in the series
-
Where is the other box ofcandy?
→ the remaining box of candy