2018-12-04 - Parts of Speech: Determiner

Parts of Speech

• Part 1 - Introduction
• Part 2 - Nouns
• Part 3 - Verbs
• Part 4 - Pronouns
• Part 5 - Articles
• Part 6 - Adjectives
• Part 7 - Determiner
• Part 8 - Adverbs

Determiners are a type of adjective used to help identify which instance of a noun is being referred to. They are similar to articles and depending on who you talk to articles may be considered a type of Determiner. One important distinction between determiners and normal descriptive adjectives is that the rules for combining determiners are usually stricter. There are several types of determiners.

Demonstrative determiners continue on from where articles left off and not only indicate that a specific noun is being talked about but attempt to indicate if the instance of the noun is close by (this, these) or far (that, those). Interrogative determiners are used to make questions. Which cat is that? What cat is that? Whose cat is that? Possessive determiners are used to indicate the owner of the noun. His cat. My cat. Your cat. Joe's cat. Numerical determiners are used to indicate how many instances of a noun there are. Some cats. Several cats. Thirty cats.

Determiners can often also be used as pronouns if the noun is omitted. This cat is mine versus This is my cat.

Next time we will look at adverbs.