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DETERMINER DEFINITION What are determiners in English? Determiners are a kind of noun modifier; they precede and are necessarily followed by nouns . While adjectives perform a similar function, the term ‘determiner’ refers to a relatively limited set of well-established words that can be said to ‘mark’ nouns. The function of determiners is to ‘express reference’; i.e. they clarify what a noun is referring to. For example, when one says ‘that box’, the listener knows which box is being referred to. Articles Articles are among the most common of the determiners. There are three singular articles: a, an , and the. Articles specify (or determine) which noun the speaker is referring to. A and an are indefinite articles and are used when you are talking about a general version of the noun. For example: · A dog is a good pet. · An ostrich would beat a chicken in a race. In these examples, the sentence is talking about dogs or ostriches in gene