D. V. Demidov

6. The system of article determination in English. 
The category of article determination shows the relations 
of the referent of the noun to the other referents of the same class. 
The article is a determiner, but unlike other determiners (the 
lexical means: this, that, some, any, very, etc.), it‘s so general, that 
it has become a grammatical means of determination in modern 
English. When no lexical determiner is used, a noun is modified 
either by a definite article ‗the‘, or an indefinite one ‗a/an‘, or by 
the absence of such, defined as a ―zero article‖. 
The definite article expresses the identification or 
individualization of the referent of the noun. The object that the 
noun denotes is taken as concrete and individual. The 
identificational meaning of the definite article can be 
demonstrated in cases, when ‗the‘ is substituted by the 
demonstrative lexical determiners, e.g.: the man à this man, the 
very man (I saw yesterday), etc.
The indefinite article expresses classification, or relative, 
classifying generalization of the referent, which means that this 
article refers the object denoted to a certain class. The classifying 
meaning of the indefinite article can be explicitly demonstrated by 
substitution with classifying words and phrases, e.g.: a man à 
some man, a certain man, some kind of a man, etc.
The zero article expresses absolute generalization, 
abstraction of the referent denoted by the noun. This meaning can 
be demonstrated by the insertion test, where the generalizing 
expressions ―in general, in the abstract‖ are inserted into the 
construction to explicitly show the abstraction, e.g.: Home should 

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be a safe and comfortable place. – Home (in the abstract, in 
general) should be a safe and comfortable place.
Paradigmatically, the category of article determination is 
formed by two oppositions organized hierarchically: on the upper 
level, the definite article, the strong member of the opposition, is 
opposed to the indefinite article and the meaningful absence of it, 
both of which express generalization and make the weak member 
of the opposition; on the lower level, the indefinite article and the 
meaningful absence of the article with uncountable nouns and 
nouns in the plural (ø1) expressing relative generalization 
(classification), which make the strong member of the opposition, 
are opposed to the zero article denoting absolute generalization 
(abstraction) (ø2) – the weak member of the opposition. 
ARTICLE DETERMINATION 
+ –
Identification Non- identification
the (Generalization) 
+ –
Relative Generalization Absolute Generalization 
(Classification) (Abstraction) 
a(n)ø1 ø2 
There are also certain fixed contexts in which the use of 
articles has no semantic ground; for example, with the names of 
newspapers the definite article is used, e.g.: the Washington Post, 
the Sun, while with the names of magazines no article is used, 
e.g.: Cosmopolitan. Most geographic names are used without 
articles, e.g.: Moscow, Russia, but the Hague; the names of 
mountains are used without articles, e.g.: Mount Everest, while 
mountain chains are given with the definite articles, e.g.: the 
Andes. Some of these cases are treated as lexicalized nominations 

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(the Hague), or traditional usage (the Washington Post, but 
Cosmopolitan), others are described as specific rules, codifying 
the use of articles in concrete conditions, mainly in the course of 
practical grammar with no attempts at semantic explanation.
The problem of article determination has given rise to 
much controversy; there is much dispute about the status of the 
article itself and its combination with the noun. It seems more 
plausible to interpret the article in terms of the general linguistic 
field approach as a lingual unit of intermediary status between the 
word and the morpheme, as a special type of grammatical 
auxiliary, and its combination with the noun as an intermediary 
phenomenon between the word and the word-combination.