Determiners are words that we put before nouns
or noun phrases to make them clear as to what they mean. A
determiner tells us which or how many persons/things we are talking about.
For example, when we say his big house, we are describing one
house which is not small and it belongs to
him. Or when we say those tall trees, we mean more
than one tree and they are not short, and the trees
are not here but over there. Examples of
most common determiners are the which is known as the Definite
Determiner, and a and an which are
the Indefinite Determiners.
Quantifiers answer the following two questions:
- How much?
– this is used with only uncountable nouns. The words
used with uncountable nouns are: a little, a
bit of, much, a great deal of,
and a large amount of.
EXAMPLE:
What you need is to put a little more salt to make it
taste like soup.
There is a bit of broken glass under the chair.
I haven't brought much money with me.
A great deal of her work is massaging
the back of patients.
The drugs were sold for a large amount of hard cash.
- How many?
– this is used with countable nouns. The words used
with countable nouns are: a, an, one,
each, every, both, a
couple of, a few, several, many,
a number of, a large number of, and a
great number of.
EXAMPLE:
A rubber duck is floating in the bath.
An evil monster like him has no friends.
One page is missing from the book.
Each item is carefully checked.
Every child was given a lollipop.
Both donkeys are braying at the same time.
After a couple of drinks, he was unable to control his
speech.
She cracked a few eggs into the mixture.
Someone stole several pigs from his farm.
I think he is putting too many eggs in one basket.
A number of you think I look overweight.
Illegal loggers cut down a large number of trees.
He has collected a great number of insects.
- Quantifiers
can be used with countable or uncountable
nouns with such words as: no, any,
some, plenty of, a lot of,
lots of, most, and all.
EXAMPLE: There is a lot of work I have
to do this week. (Uncountable noun)
EXAMPLE: There were a lot of people
watching the cockfight. (Countable noun)
Besides the common determiners like the articles stated above, there are
other determiners such as: some, any, that,
those, this, whatever, and
whichever. There are also determiners that express quantity:
few, little, both, each,
every, all, many, several,
enough, and no. Other determiners include numerals which
appear before a noun, and ordinal numerals which express
sequence: Examples of these are: one, two, ten
and first, second, third.
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