Theme: Article Plan: Artical types Crosslinguistic variation

Theme: Article

Plan:

1.Artical types
2.Crosslinguistic variation
3.Historical development
4.Using articles

An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.

In English, both "the" and "a(n)" are articles, which combine with nouns to form noun phrases. Articles typically specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun phrase, but in many languages, they carry additional grammatical information such as gender, number, and case. Articles are part of a broader category called determiners, which also include demonstratives, possessive determiners, and quantifiers. In linguistic interlinear glossing, articles are abbreviated as art.
Types

Definite article

"Definite article" redirects here. For the Eddie Izzard comedy DVD, see Definite Article.
A definite article is an article that marks a definite noun phrase. Definite articles such as English the are used to refer to a particular member of a group. It may be something that the speaker has already mentioned or it may be otherwise something uniquely specified.
For example, Sentence 1 uses the definite article and thus expresses a request for a particular book. In contrast, Sentence 2 uses an indefinite article and thus conveys that the speaker would be satisfied with any book.

1. 
   Give me the book.
   
2. 
   Give me a book.
   

The definite article can also be used in English to indicate a specific class among other classes:
The cabbage white butterfly lays its eggs on members of the Brassica genus.
However, recent developments show that definite articles are morphological elements linked to certain noun types due to lexicalization. Under this point of view, definiteness does not play a role in the selection of a definite article more than the lexical entry attached to the article.

Indefinite article

An indefinite article is an article that marks an indefinite noun phrase. Indefinite articles are those such as English "some" or "a", which do not refer to a specific identifiable entity. Indefinites are commonly used to introduce a new discourse referent which can be referred back to in subsequent discussion:

1. 
   A monster ate a cookie. His name is Cookie Monster.
   

Indefinites can also be used to generalize over entities who have some property in common:

1. 
   A cookie is a wonderful thing to eat.
   

Indefinites can also be used to refer to specific entities whose precise identity is unknown or unimportant.

1. 
   A monster must have broken into my house last night and eaten all my cookies.
   
2. 
   A friend of mine told me that happens frequently to people who live on Sesame Street.
   

Indefinites also have predicative uses:

1. 
   Leaving my door unlocked was a bad decision.
   

Indefinite noun phrases are widely studied within linguistics, in particular because of their ability to take exceptional scope.