2017-09-11 Grammar: generic/particular articles

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
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Determiners include several other types of words:
- articles: a/an, the, (some), Ø (zero article)
- quantifiers: some, many, much, a few, several, a lot, all, every, …
- possessives: my, your, our, Greg’s, the students’, whose, …
- demonstratives: this, that, these, those
- some interrogatives: which, what, whose
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If you include the zero article (which we will write as Ø for this class), every noun phrase begins with a determiner.
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count/noncount nouns (or countable/uncountable)
one book, two books, many books, a book, all books (count)
rice, some rice, much rice, no rice, all rice (noncount)
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Many noncount nouns can be used countably to mean one container or one type of that thing:
“I always put two sugars in my coffee in the morning.” (two packets of sugar, or two cubes)
“I really like French wines, but I don’t enjoy Italian wines so much.” (many types of wine)
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Many count nouns can be used uncoutably to mean the material:
“We bought a turkey from the store and everyone had some turkey for Thanksgiving.”
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Articles:
definite article = “the”
	- specific, known noun, singular or plural, count or noncount
indefinite articles
	a/an - nonspecific or indefinite, singular count nouns
	“a” before consonant sounds: a book, a university, a one-way street
	“an” before vowel sounds: an apple, an hour, an umbrella
Ø (“zero article”) - nonspecific or generic, plural and noncount nouns
	“some” before plural and noncount nouns that are nonspecific
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Indefinite articles can be used with nonspecific or generic nouns, but those are different:
I bought pencils for my class. = I bought some pencils for my class. (nonspecific)
Pencils are very useful if you expect to make mistakes. (generic)
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Handout p. 317 exercise 3 - Decide if each statement is about a generic or particular noun.
1 P
2 G
3 P
4 G
5 G
6 P
7 G(?)
8 P
9 P
10 G
11 P
12 G
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“a”, “an”, “the”, and Ø can be used for generic or particular nouns
“some” is only for particular nouns
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Homework: exercise 4 - Try to write one generic and one particular statement for each word