Determiners

A determiner is a word placed before a noun to specify or limit it in some way — identifying which one, how many, or whose it is. Every noun phrase in English generally needs some kind of determiner (or a deliberate absence of one) before the noun can function correctly in a sentence.

book — incomplete on its own
a book / the book / my book / this book / some books — each version specifies the noun differently

Determiners fall into several categories, depending on what kind of information they add:

• Articles (a, an, the) — the most frequent and often the trickiest category, since English also allows the absence of an article in certain cases

• Demonstratives (this, that, these, those) — pointing to something specific, near or far

• Possessives (my, your, his, her, its, our, their) — showing ownership or belonging

• Quantifiers (some, many, few, all, every...) — expressing amount, already explored in depth in the Quantity section

• Interrogative determiners (which, what, whose) — used to ask about a noun

We'll begin with articles, since they carry the most nuance and the widest range of rules — then move through the remaining categories, several of which connect back to sections already covered.