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I'm trying to break down the english language in a computer program. Having a hard time figuring out those two. I think that they should be adjectives though because they are descriptive as in

a watermelon - any random watermelon

the watermelon - some specific watermelon

and also because I can't find any other use for them. When I learned english in school, I think my teacher called them something like "articles" (direct translation, don't know the english for it) but that doesn't help me at all.

user81993
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  • Back in school I learned that articles are adjectives. – GEdgar Feb 04 '16 at 15:05
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    It all comes down to how narrowly one defines adjective. Some grammarians impose a lot of requirements— for them to call a word an adjective it must have a comparative form, or be usable as a predicate complement, or both and more. Others group articles and some words traditionally classed as pronouns (e.g. demonstratives) in a separate class known as determiners. – choster Feb 04 '16 at 19:44

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They're called articles; "a" (used in front of a noun that begins with a consonant) and "an" (used in front of a noun the begins with a vowel) are known as indefinite articles while "the" is the definite article

You're correct that the indefinite article is used to refer to something non-specific, while the definite article is used to refer to a particular entity. So

A watermelon

Would indeed simply be referring to any random watermelon, and

The watermelon

Would refer to a specific watermelon, probably one that was already being discussed or had been discussed recently, so as to provide context.

As you said you were struggling to find a use for them, here's another example:

A book is fun to read.

Here I'm simply saying that reading books is fun, and not talking about any particular book.

The book is fun to read.

Here, though, I'm talking about a specific book. I'm only saying that book is fun to read, not any others.

Note that articles exist to define nouns as specific or non-specific, and are different from adjectives because they don't describe the noun itself.

John Clifford
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  • But, for the OP, articles are more like adjectives than they are like any other part of speech. I'd call them a very specific subclass of adjectives. To say an article is not an adjective is like saying a whale is not a mammal. Historically, articles usually start off in anarthrous languages (like Latin) as adjectives ('ille/illa (that) -> 'le/il/el/la' (the)). – Mitch Feb 04 '16 at 14:29
  • @Mitch They were'nt adjectives either. You can't just ask "does my phlogiston ebb aimlessly through my body" and expect a yes answer because you want one. It doesn't. We have hearts that pump blood round our body on a specific route. You can't make this different by wanting it to be. – Araucaria - Him Feb 04 '16 at 19:09
  • @Araucaria you metaphors are poetic but they escape me. Can you label what's what in yours and mine so I get the comparison? Articles aren't perfect adjectives, that's why they're a special subclass. – Mitch Feb 04 '16 at 21:13
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    @Mitch They're not perfect adjectives in the same way that nouns and verbs aren't perfect adjectives :D Here's some qualifying data/problems: Every has no comparative form. It can't be used as Complement of the verb BE. It isn't modifiable by the adverb very. It doesn't co-ordinate with real adjectives. It is compulsorily followed by a noun. It is a word like a, not a word like clever. If you remove it from a noun phrase the phrase will be ungrammatical. In addition adverbs cannot premodify nouns. Adjectives can function as Subjects of specifying BE, every can't ... (there's more) – Araucaria - Him Feb 04 '16 at 21:32
  • @Mitch For phlogiston in relation to blood and circulation see here. Basically a well-documented and developed idea about how blood works in the body. But now we know about hearts, it's completely redundant. This is like the situation before anyone pointed out that articles nothing to do with adjectives. It was accecptable once but is no longer. – Araucaria - Him Feb 04 '16 at 22:21
  • @Araucaria So you're saying that an article is not a special kind of adjective at all, that there is no affinity whatsoever with adjectives? – Mitch Feb 04 '16 at 23:06
  • @Mitch Yes, exactly so. The only thing which gives us some excuse for ever having thought so is that they occur in noun phrases before the Head noun. That and the fact that we studied Latin a lot and thought of it as an ideal language. Latin, of course did not have determiners hanging around on every corner. They were only required for special occasions. – Araucaria - Him Feb 04 '16 at 23:28
  • I think my main reluctance to treat articles like adjectives is that I generally imagine an adjective like this: if you can use it as a replacement in the sentence "You're looking particularly X today." it's an adjective. I can't say "You're looking particularly the today." – John Clifford Feb 04 '16 at 23:31
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    @JohnClifford Thanks, I might nick that, if that's ok? That's quite a good test for students. What you're noticing there is that adjectives can be used as Predicative Complements (and articles and other determiners can't) – Araucaria - Him Feb 04 '16 at 23:33
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    @Araucaria Be my guest. – John Clifford Feb 04 '16 at 23:34
  • @Araucaria all I see from what you've said is that articles aren't canonical adjectives. They still act like adjectives in a number of features, none of which features are shared with nouns, verbs, or adverbs. – Mitch Feb 04 '16 at 23:58
  • @Mitch Do they? How so? – Araucaria - Him Feb 05 '16 at 00:14
  • @Araucaria Modifiers of nouns. colors are also modifiers of nouns but can't be used in all the same places that canonical adjectives can. Does that mean colors should have their own POS label? Possibly, but that doesn't mean colors aren't kinds of adjectives. – Mitch Feb 05 '16 at 00:26
  • @Mitch Where can normal adjectives be used that colours can't? Colours have all the normal adjective properties (and some extra ones). They, unlike articles do modify nouns in the sense that they form a phrase directly with the head. Articles don't do this, they only attach to phrases headed by noun, not nouns themselves. And in this way, articles can be said to be like adverbs, for example. No similarity at all between articles and adjectives. – Araucaria - Him Feb 05 '16 at 08:54
  • @Mitch Do you fancy asking a question about articles/determiners/adjectives? – Araucaria - Him Feb 05 '16 at 13:25
  • @Araucaria It's more of a philosophical discussion, differences vs commonalities. It is incontestable that articles have adjective-like properties, you are emphasizing where they are different, me where they are the same (and we could also emphasize the importance of the differences). But I find it wrong that when the differences are pointed out, the name 'article' is used as a bludgeon to say that they are entirely different as much different as nouns and verbs, which is intellectually disingenuous. – Mitch Feb 05 '16 at 13:29
  • @Araucaria This is linguistics: a different name doesn't mean they are mutually exclusive, as well as using the same name should not imply they are identical. – Mitch Feb 05 '16 at 13:30
  • @Mitch But what evidence is there that they have anything in common at all? I'm also interested in the colours thing. I can't think of anything that other adjectives do that colours don't. – Araucaria - Him Feb 05 '16 at 13:31
  • @Araucaria As to the technical statement about color, I thought that there were syntactic instances where they don't act the same as canonical adjectives, but at the moment I can't think of any examples. Oops, maybe I was thinking of numbers. – Mitch Feb 05 '16 at 13:32
  • @Mitch They seem to sometimes have special properties in addition to the ones that adjectives have (which makes some people argue that there's a noun blue as well as an adjective blue - or that blue is always a noun), but they have all of the properties adjectives normally have too :) – Araucaria - Him Feb 05 '16 at 13:44
  • @Mitch See here for example. [But personally, I don't buy into the noun analysis in that sentence] – Araucaria - Him Feb 05 '16 at 13:53
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Ultimately "a/an" and "the" are adjectives. Their function is not describing, but selective, indicating whether the following noun is something known or unknown to the person spoken to.

As these adjectives have a special function (with a special information) they have a special name: articles.

The definite article is a weakened form of an old demonstrative adjective now represented by "that". The indefinite article a or an is a reduced form of the numeral one. The last two sentences are from: Curme, English Grammar. (Numerals are also special adjectives answering the question how many.)

In some grammars there is a chapter about articles, in some grammars the articles are dealt with in the chapter adjectives, depending on whether the author sees the articles as a word class of their own or not.

rogermue
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  • Do you have a twentieth-first century grammar to back that claim up with? – Araucaria - Him Feb 04 '16 at 19:11
  • No, a grammar is not necessary, if one knows the development of Latin ille/illa to French le/la (definite article) and Latin unus/una to French un et une (indefinite article). The development for German and English was similar, eg Latin unus, una is parallel to German ein, eine and English an and the shortened form a. – rogermue Feb 04 '16 at 19:47
  • But none of those are adjectives. – Araucaria - Him Feb 04 '16 at 19:51
  • What is your view? Probably that of CGEL. – rogermue Feb 04 '16 at 19:57
  • No, I'll go with any beginners or elementary EFL textbook, or any academic grammar written within the last half century,at a stretch within the last century. They're determiners. – Araucaria - Him Feb 04 '16 at 20:01
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    Here's why: Every has no comparative form. It can't be used as a Complement of the verb BE. It isn't modifiable by the adverb very. It doesn't co-ordinate with real adjectives. It is compulsorily followed by a noun. It is a word like a, not a word like clever. If you remove it from a noun phrase the phrase will be ungrammatical. In addition adverbs cannot modify premodify nouns. – Araucaria - Him Feb 04 '16 at 20:02
  • Determiners is a new term for a group af special adjectives that can take the position of the articles. Since my school years I called them article words. The Longman/Alexander grammar gives a survey: Determiners are special selective adjectives as 1 articles, 2 possessive adjectives, 3 demonstrative adjectives. A second group are quantifying adjectives as 1 numerals, 2 general or indefinite quantifiers such as much, many, little, few which are also adjectives. Determiners is only another name or term, it is not a new class of words. – rogermue Feb 04 '16 at 20:10
  • No, not really. They were never like adjectives in the first place. When they were thought to be, it was like when we believed the world was flat. It's completely obvious that they're not adjectives. That's the problem with when we used to always confuse the grammatical function with the type of word. We ere unable to distinguish between occurring before a noun and having a particular part of speech. – Araucaria - Him Feb 04 '16 at 20:16