Determiner (class)

A determiner, also called determinative (abbreviated DET), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner may indicate whether the noun is referring to a definite or indefinite element of a class, to a closer or more distant element, to an element belonging to a specified person or thing, to a particular number or quantity, etc. Common kinds of determiners include definite and indefinite articles (like the English the and a or an), demonstratives (this and that), possessive determiners (my and their), quantifiers (many, few and several), numerals, distributive determiners (each, any), and interrogative determiners (which).

For examples of determiners and their use, see the box on the right. For further details of their use in English, see English determiners and English articles.

Most determiners have been traditionally classed either along with adjectives or with pronouns, and this still occurs: for example, demonstrative and possessive determiners are sometimes described as demonstrative adjectives and possessive adjectives or as (adjectival) demonstrative pronouns and (adjectival) possessive pronouns respectively. However, modern theorists of grammar prefer to distinguish determiners as a separate word class from adjectives, which are simple modifiers of nouns, expressing attributes of the thing referred to. This distinction applies particularly in languages like English that use definite and indefinite articles, frequently as a necessary component of noun phrases – the determiners may then be taken to be a class of words that includes the articles as well as other words that function in the place of articles. (The composition of this class may depend on the particular language's rules of syntax; for example, in English the possessives my, your etc. are used without articles and so can be regarded as determiners, whereas their Italian equivalents mio etc. are used together with articles and so may be better classed as adjectives.) Not all languages can be said to have a lexically distinct class of determiners.

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