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
Demonstratives
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
Distributives
Example
- all, both, half, either, neither, each, every
Difference words
Question words
Defining words
Pre-determiners
They go before determiners, such as articles:
Example
- uch and what, half, rather, quite