Determiners (the, my, some, this)

Determiners are words such as the, my, this, some, twenty, each, any, which are used before nouns:

the countryside	some paper	this old sofa
my father	five green chairs	each person

Determiners include the following common types:

• Articles: a/an, the
• Demonstratives: this, that, these, those
• Possessives: my, your, his, her, its, our, their, x’s (possessive ’s)
• Quantifiers: (a) few, fewer, (a) little, many, much, more, most, some, any, etc.
• Numbers: one, two, three, etc.

Here is a list of the determiners included in this book. Many of them have individual entries:

(a) few, fewer, fewest	every	most	that
(a) little	half	much	the
(an)other	her	my	their
a/an	his	neither	these
all	its	no	this
any	Jim’s, Anna’s, etc.	one, two, three, etc.	those
both	least	our	what
each	less	several	which
either	many	some	whose
enough	more	such	your

Sometimes we don’t use a determiner before the noun. We call this ‘zero determiner’:

• Dogs love biscuits.

See also

• A/an and the

What do determiners do?

Determiners have two main functions: referring and quantifying.

Referring

Referring means showing us who or what the noun is pointing to or talking about. The most common types of determiners which we use for referring are articles, possessives and demonstratives:

• A: Where’s the newspaper?
• B: It’s on the sofa. (the means the noun refers to something the speaker and listener both know or are familiar with)
• A: Have you seen my MP3 player anywhere?
• B: Yes. It’s on the kitchen table. (my refers to something which belongs to the speaker; the refers to something the speaker and listener can both identify because they both know or share knowledge about it.)
• Do you want this bag or are you going to put it in that box? (this refers to something near the speaker; that refers to something further away.)
• Charles is looking for his dictionary. Have you got it? (his means the noun refers to something belonging to a male, in this case, Charles.)

Quantifying

‘Quantifying’ means showing how much of something there is, or how many:

• Five people were arrested during an anti-war demonstration in London today.
• There are some letters here for you. (some means a non-specific, small number or quantity of something.)
• Do you have enough flour to make the bread. (enough means a quantity that is sufficient or adequate for something).

See also

• A/an and the
• Possession (John’s car, a friend of mine)
• Some and any
• Determiners and modifiers