There is another topic concerning the article – the determinatives. The article is a word that serves as a determiner alongside with such determiners as demonstrative, possessive and indefinite pronouns. The article is one of the main means of expressing the idea of definiteness and indefiniteness.

The article presents one of the most difficult and intricate problems of language structure. Although a great num­ber of philologists have treated the article both in English and in other languages, it will be only fair to say that even the most essential points concerning the theory of the articles still remain doubtful.

With respect to the article we must state, in the first place, that there are languages which have no article. Besides Russian and most other Slavonic languages, the Latin language belongs here. Ancient Greek had only one article — the definite one. Many languages (Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, etc.) have two articles — the definite and the indefinite. As far as its form is concerned, the article is usually a separate unit which may be divided from its noun by other words, chiefly adjectives. However, in cer­tain languages the article may also be a morpheme attached to the noun as a kind of suffix.

It has been a long debated question how many articles there are in English. Obviously there are only two material articles, the definite article the and the indefinite article a (an). The distinction thus is between, for instance, the language and: a language.

The two main views of the article are, then, these: (1) The ar­ticle is a word (possibly a separate part of speech) and the collo­cation "article + noun" is a phrase (if of a peculiar kind). (2) The article is a form element in the- system of the noun; it is thus a kind of morpheme, or, if a word, an auxiliary word of the same kind as the auxiliary verbs. In that case the phrase "article + noun" is a morphological formation similar to the formation "auxiliary verb + infinitive or participle", which is an analytical form of the verb.

Reverting to the two sentences, (1) The dog has come home and (2) The dog is a domestic animal, we shall see that each of the predicates has several peculiarities which influence the meaning of the sentence one way or another. Let us analyse each of these. First, the grammatical peculiarities. In (1) the predicate is a verb in the present perfect tense, in (2) it is a group "link verb + predi­cative", and the link verb is in the present tense. That of course would not in itself be sufficient to show the different meanings of the sentences, but it does give a certain indication this way: the verb in the present perfect tense is more likely than not to express-a concrete action (i. e. one that has taken place once), while the group "link verb in the present tense + predicative" is very likely to express some general characteristic.

Now, these grammatical points are supplemented by some lexical points, which make the difference quite clear. In (1) the verb come and the adverb home denote a concrete physical action and the place to which it is directed, while in (2) the predicative a domestic animal denotes a zoological idea and thus proves that by the dog is meant not an individual dog but the whole species. According to this view, then, the meaning of the definite article itself is the same in both sentences, and the difference proceeds from the pecu­liarities of the predicates and the words expressing them.

When we consider the absence of the article, we have to distin­guish between the singular and the plural number. Broadly speak­ing, the absence of the article with a noun in the plural corresponds to the indefinite article with that noun in the singular, whereas the absence of the article with a noun in the singular stands apart and does not correspond to anything in the plural.

We will first consider the absence of the article with а noun in the singular and start with nouns which can equally be used with the definite and the indefinite- article and without any article. One of these is the noun language, we take three sentences: Language is a means of communication. English is the foreign language I know best. Everyone must study a foreign language. The difference here is obvious enough. Language without article does not refer to any one language (Russian, English, German, etc.) but to the general idea of that means of communication. Similar observations might be made on a number of other nouns.

The absence of the article with a noun in the plural, as we have said corresponds to a certain extent to the indefinite article with the noun in the singular. However, this is far from being always the case. This may be shown by some very simple examples. If we take, for instance, the sentence I have read a novel by Thackeray and if we want to change it in such a way as to show that more than one novel is meant we will of course say I have read some novels by Thackeray, i. e. we shall have to use the word some, and not merely drop the article. Though the word some is not an article, it does come close in meaning to the indefinite article in one of its uses.

Thus, the absence of the article with a noun in the plural is the only possibility in sentences expressing general statements such as, Dogs are domestic animals, or Goose quills were in common use formerly. The article is also absent in such sentences as, Pencils, pens, and sheets of paper were strewn all over the table, where in­definitely large quantities are meant.

References

1.Bloch M.Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. -  M., 2000. – p.6-26

2.Блох М.Я. Теоретические основы грамматики – М., 2000

3.Блох М.Я , Семенова Т.Н. Имена собственные личные в синтагматике, парадигматике и прагматике. – М.:Готика, 2001

4.Strang B. Modern English Structure. – London, 1962