A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

92 Chapter 5 Nouns and noun phrases

when you hear that nominal you know very little about it. The predicate of the

clause then goes on to give a fuller identification of it.

Indefinite article

The indefinite article does not indicate that the description in the head is defining.
The description is not presented as unique in the context. Take these examples:

[26] i [£1 cabinet minister] has been arrested.

ii I'll give you [Q. key].

.. A cabinet contains a number of ministers, and if I don't know (or am not bother­

ing to say) which one of them got arrested I will use a rather than the. Here, of

course, a which question is perfectly appropriate: Which one? would be a natural

response to [i].

Cl The context for [ii] is likely to be one where it is clear which lock you'll be using

the key in, but it will be a lock for which there are multiple keys, and if I haven't

decided (or don't care) which of them I'll give you, I will again use the indefinite

article.

Articles with plural NPs

Article use has been illustrated so far with singular NPs, but of course the also

occurs in plurals:

[27] i [The Presidents of France and Italy] will be meeting again tomorrow.

ii Where did you put [the keys]?

These are very much like the singulars. Again a which question would be inappro­

priate.

.. In [i] the head uniquely defines a set of two people, so the referent is clearly

identifiable.

III In [ii] I'm talking about a bunch of keys, and the context is assumed to make

clear which bunch.

Which determiners are definite and indefinite

The words that mark the NP as definite or as indefinite when they serve as deter­

miners are given in [28i] and [28ii].

[28] DEFINITE

11 INDEFINITE

the; this, that; all, both; relative which, whichever, what,

whateverl

a; each, every; some, any; either, neither; no; another; a

fe w, a little, several; many, much, more, most,few,fewer,

little, less; enough, sufficient; interrogative which,

whichever, what, whatever; one, two, three,four,five, ...

I Relative which, whichever, etc., occur in relative clauses: see Ch. 11, §§2, 4.