Determiners

Determiners are words placed in front of a noun to make it clear what the noun refers to.  They always agree in gender and number with the nouns they modify.

There are 5 types of determiners:

 

1.- Articles

‘a’ and ‘an’ are indefinite articles, and ‘the’ is a definite article.

 

2.- Demonstratives

They show where an object, event, or person is in relation to the speaker.

 

3.- Possessives

They serve to express ownership or possession.  They do not replace a noun as pronouns do.

 

4.- Quantifiers

We use them when we want to give someone information about the number of something: how much or how many.

 

5.- Predeterminers

They are words that come before a determiner and modify it. They are normally placed before an indefinite article and followed by the determiner.  ‘Such’ and ‘what’ are often used to express surprise or other emotions; ‘rather’ and ‘quite’ refer to the degree of a particular quality.