Delimiters

Delimiters is an alternative term for articles, as in definite and indefinite articles. This is a term that I have proposed, as I find the term article to be confusing and unhelpful, especially for students. Delimiters or articles belong to the larger syntactic category of determiners. English has the following delimiters.

• Singular indefinite a and an
• Singular / plural definite the

Additionally, some functions like a plural indefinite delimiter, as in some apples, referring to a particular quantity of a non-specific set of apples. For nouns with no delimiters, some linguists posit a zero article, as in ∅ apples in I like apples. Or the nouns can simply be called bare nouns - nouns not modified by a determiner.

Significantly more material will be added to this page later, along with related pages for teachers and learners.