= 161. 2*362 (075. 8) К211 ббк [81. 2-2 Англ + 81. 2-2 Укр] я 73

6. The English article
The article is also considered to be a semi-notional part (or functional) of speech. The two English words a (an), the form a separate group or class characterized by:
1. the lexico-grammatical meaning of "definiteness/indefini-
teness";

2. 
   the right-hand combinability with nouns;
   
3. 
   the function of noun specifiers [24; 214].
   

Unlike Ukrainian in which there is no article as well as in the majority of other Slavonic languages, the English language has the definite article (the) and the indefinite article (a, an). The article is the most widely used determiner of the English noun.
A special feature of the English noun is the fact that it is less independent than the noun in Ukrainian. The English noun almost cannot function in the sentence without being strengthened by some determiners. Except for articles, such determiners in some cases can be possessive and indefinite pronouns (some, any).
In such languages of the Germanic family, as, for example, the German language, the article can express the gender, the number and the case of the noun. In the English language the article does not have any of these categories; it is altogether unchangeable.
The grammatical nature of the English article, and its "linguistic nature" have not been still finally determined. The question concerning the place of article in the system of lexical-grammatical classes of words is still a disputable one. A lot of grammars treat article as a special part of speech. Though we can notice a striking difference of the article both from notional words (повнозначт слова), such as nouns, pronouns etc, and from functional words
(preposition, conjunction) which express syntactic relations between words or sentences.
Yu.O. Zhluktenko agrees with the English philologist B.O. Ilyish that the English article is on the border between the word and the morpheme. Though the article in the German language is undoubtedly a separate word, since it changes according to gender, number and cases [5; 48].
All functions of the English article are directed towards either determining the meaning of the noun or its grammatical relations. Its semantic function is considered to be its ability to point out the generalization or specification (узагальнетсгь або конкретнють) of some notion, expressed by the noun. Its morphological function is to serve the index (слугувати показником) of the noun as a part of speech (compare: rich (богатый) and the rich (багачг)). Its syntactic function is to separate the noun group with its attribute from other parts of sentence. So, the English article is the auxiliary word-morpheme which functions in the sphere of one part of speech - the noun, serving as its formal index. (Це дополпжне слово-морфема, яка функцюнуе у сфер! одше'1 частини мови - {менника, обслуговуючи й' як формальний показник).
In reality, the article does not have a lexical-grammatical meaning, as true words, but only a grammatical-functional meaning, which is realized, like by morphemes, by its connection with the noun and is the component part of the common meaning of this combination.
The research highlighted in some linguistic works opposes the theory of existence of three articles in the English language. According to this theory the English language posseses besides the definite and the indefinite article also the so-called "zero article" (that is the meaningful absence of the article before the noun). In reality some special meaning is acquired in some special cases by the noun itself which can be easily proved by the example of the proper names noun class that are used without articles.
The cases of article usage in the English language are very different. Along the distinct grammar function of the article, we can also observe in many word groups a lot of such cases when the article

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221

has a purely lexical meaning, that is it, in fact, has become the constituent part of the word and its usage is practically unmotivated (for example, the usage of the article with river names or in such names as the Crimea, the Hague).
The main functions of the definite article in English are to determine and to generalize (визначальна та узагальнювальна).
When the function of the article is to determine, it shows that the object, the person or the phenomenon, denoted by a noun, have some individual features that separate them from other objects, persons or phenomena of the same class, for example: The boy is holding a little flag. ((Цей) хлопчик держишь прапорецъ).
Being used in the function to generalize, the definite article gives to the noun in the singular form the meaning of the generalized notion - of the whole class of such subjects (persons, phenomena), e.g.: the pine does not grow here/ сосна тут не росте.
The main function of the indefinite article is to classify (класифшацшна). The indefinite article singles out a separate object (person) from the class which it belongs to, not ascribing to it any individual features in comparison with other objects (persons) of this class. The object is considered not from the point of view of its individual peculiarities, but as one of the objects that make up the following class: a book - "книжка esazani або якасъ книжка" на eidjumy eid зошита, газеты, журналу тощо.
The absence of the article in Ukrainian does not mean that similar notions cannot be expressed in it with the help of other means. Such means are usually word order, intonation and different lexical means. Very often those functions, performed in English with the help of definite and indefinite articles, are expressed by the word order in Ukrainian. In particular, when we mention some object or person in the classifying meaning for the first time, this noun is usually put at the end of the sentence, e.g.:
Вас чекаехлопчик. (Compare: A boy is waiting for you). When the name of the object or person is used in the same sentence with the individualized meaning, then it is placed at the beginning of the sentence, e.g.: