An Introduction - Determiners | English Grammar - English Free Test|Englishfreetest.com

An Introduction - Determiners | English Grammar - English Free Test



Determiners are words placed in front of a noun to make it clear what the noun refers to.
The word ' people ' by itself is a general reference to some group of human beings.
If someone says ' these people', we know which group they are talking about, and if they say ' a lot of people' we know how big the group is.

' These ' and ' a lot of ' are determiners in these sentences.

Classes of Determiners

There are several classes of determiners:

Definite and Indefinite articles

Example
  • the, a, an

Demonstratives

Example
  • this, that, these, those

Possessives

Example
  • my, your, his, her, its, our, their

Quantifiers

Example
  • a few, a little, much, many, a lot of, most, some, any, enough, etc.

Numbers

Example
  • one, ten, thirty, etc.

Distributives

Example
  • all, both, half, either, neither, each, every

Difference words

Example
  • other, another

Question words

Example
  • Which, what, whose

Defining words

Example
  • which, whose

Pre-determiners

They go before determiners, such as articles:
Example
  • uch and what, half, rather, quite