 Assalamu alaikum viewers, welcome to virtual university and to your English class. Today we are going to talk about articles and their use. Nowadays grammarians divide English words into two categories, major and minor. In the major category are words like nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. These words are sometimes called content words because they carry the main meaning in communication. In the good old days when we used to send telegrams, it was these content words that were used mainly. For instance, if you didn't have any money and you were writing home to your parents, you would write send money broke. You have the verb send and you have the noun money and you have the adjective broke. And three words you conveyed, these three words communicated the meaning. Or if you were travelling by train and you sent a telegram and you wanted your friends or relatives, whoever you were visiting to come and receive you at the station, you would write send a telegram saying arriving Thesgam Sunday. So these content words carry the main meaning in communication. In the minor categories you have words like determiners, pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions. Now minor words express very subtle shades of meaning. They express information which is pretty obvious or sometimes even redundant grammatical information. That is words that perform no particular function but they are there, they are part of the language. Minor class words, they occur more frequently than members of major classes. There are around 50 of these minor words and they are very common in English. They are very commonly used and all of these 50 words are function words. They make up about 60% of the words that are used in speech and about 40% of those that are used in writing. Now these minor words, they are just like bricks, bricks that cement together the content words. And for this reason minor words are also known as structure words. As I said earlier we are going to look at determiners. Of course the other minor words are pronouns and conjunctions but we are going to look at determiners. Now they are a class of minor words and a determiner is a word which precedes or comes before a noun and an adjective. For example, take this sentence, the cat sat on my back. Now in that sentence the noun is cat and the is the determiner. There is another determiner over there and that is the word my. Again it comes before the noun back. There is an article, my is a possessive and both of them belong to the category of determiners. Another sentence, I don't want any t, I don't want any t. Now in that sentence any is a determiner. It comes before the word t which is a noun. But any is an indefinite determiner because any doesn't determine the quality or the quantity or the number. It just says any so it is considered an indefinite determiner. Another example, have you some yogurt? Some, again the word some is a determiner. It comes before the noun yogurt and it is indefinite because the quantity is not mentioned. It doesn't say have you got 3 kilos of yogurt or 2 boxes of it. It says have you some. Now there are 5 main types of determiners. The first category, articles. The articles are and and the. Then you have demonstratives, words like this, that, these, those. Then you've got possessives, my, you, his, her, its, our, them, theirs. Then you've got quantifiers, words like some, any, all, enough, both, each, ever, few, much, more, most, few, less, either, neither. They are all quantifiers. They tell you something about the quantity, the number. Then you've got WH determiners. WH meaning what, whatever, whichever, whoever, whose. So amongst determiners, you have 5 types, 5 main types of determiners. And these are articles, possessives, demonstratives, quantifiers and WH determiners. The reason why we are going to look at articles is that Pakistani learners of English make the most mistakes in the use of articles. There is a reason for that. The reason is that our languages do not possess the article. We do not use articles, Urdu language, the Punjabi language and other languages of our country. We do not have articles. At least I know, I don't know about the other languages, but I'm sure about Urdu and Punjabi. And English makes use of articles. So our learners have problems in the use of English articles. And learners insert articles where they are not required and they don't use them where they are required. And in today's lesson, we shall only examine articles which are a subclass of determiners. And we shall try to look at them in detail. In English, there are two articles, the definite the and the indefinite a or an. Now articles are easily recognized and they indicate that a noun follows. But sometimes nouns require no articles. So don't run away with the idea that there has to be an article with a noun. Sometimes nouns do not require articles. Well, when we come to that part, we will talk about it. Now while articles have a single function, they have only one function and that is that they modify the head noun in a noun phrase. Their meaning is quite complex. And over here we are going to look at their meaning. And before we do that, we look at the forms, the forms of the articles. And we look at their pronunciation. The spelling of the indefinite article a and the pronunciation of both the definite and the indefinite articles depends on the initial sound of the word that follows. And articles are normally not stressed, but they may be for the sake of emphasis. The unstressed definite article is always written the and pronounced the, T-H-E. It is written T-H-E and it is pronounced the. And this is before consonants, right? Consonants like, if you remember your earlier lessons, like per, ter, ker, ger, ber, der. But they are pronounced a as the before vowels. The indefinite article a is pronounced a before consonants and an before vowels. Very simple. If you just remember your earlier lessons in school, I am sure you heard about all this. You say the girl, the pilot, the bridge. But it is the aunt, the egg, the octopus. Why? Because the word that follows the article begins with a vowel. You have a girl, a pilot, a bridge. But it is an apple, an octopus, an egg. And the stressed article the, when you want to stress, lay stress on something. And then T-H-E, the, is pronounced as the. The stressed definite article the is used to show excellence, superiority or, you know, just emphasis. For example, if somebody asks you, is she the Mrs. Bart? The, something associated with Mrs. Bart, you want to know about that. And in answer, the person says no, she is a Mrs. Bart, but not the famous one. Now, do you understand why you stress the? You do it for the sake of emphasis. For instance, take another example. This party will be the party of the week. The, because you wanted to emphasize that this is going to be a special or a great social event. Now, we will talk about the use, their usage, the usage of articles. The general rules are, and the first rule is that the definite article the, can be used with all kinds of nouns, except most proper nouns. For instance, their dog, their child, their train. These were singular count nouns. And in the plural, they would be their dogs, their children, their trains. And mass nouns, with mass nouns, it would be their water, their silver. Now, that was rule, the general rule, that they would be used with all kinds of nouns, except most proper nouns. The second rule about indefinite article a, or an, is that they can normally be used with singular count nouns. A ball, a child, an exam. With plural, some balls, some children, some exams. Singular mass nouns, you can say some silver, some milk, some knowledge. For other nouns, the zero article, that is no article at all, is used for indefinite meaning. Now, you will see a table on your screen, and this table summarizes the above rules. One glance and you have the rules before you. Right? Let us move on. You can look at that screen. Now, we will talk about the use of the definite article. When we use the definite article the, it indicates that a hearer or reader can identify the thing that is referred to. Or he knows, or he or she knows what is being talked about. For example, when I say, I saw the film, the hearer, my hearer, or if I, excuse me, if I write, I saw the film. The reader would know which film I am talking about, because I have used the article the. But this is not the case when we use the indefinite article. For instance, if I said, I saw a film, now my reader or my hearer, listener, wouldn't know which film I saw. And if we want to express indefinite meaning of amount, then again we use the indefinite article a or an. With the singular count down or plural count down, example, would you like a soda? Would you like a soda? Or do you like chocolate? Now, notice in both these situations, in both these sentences, there was no article used. In the first one we did have, would you like a soda? In the second one, do you like chocolate? In the second one, because the mass noun chocolate doesn't take an article. Now, just to summarize, singular count nouns showing one, a girl, the chair. Plural count nouns showing more than one, two girls, five chairs, mass nouns. You use advertising, the word advertising, music, butter, right. Now, there are four conditions in which definite meaning arises. We use the definite article for number one, referring back. That is what they say, the referring back use of the article. When we want to identify, once identity has been established by an earlier mention, we need not mention it, the second example. Let us look at the sentence and what I want to say will become clear. Sabha bought a TV and a video recorder, but she returned the video recorder. Now, notice in the first part, it says a TV and a video recorder. You've got a definite article, a video, a TV. But the second half of the sentence says, but she returned the video recorder. So, when you are referring back, when identity has been established by an earlier mention, we use the definite article. Earlier we used a, a TV, a video recorder. Second time it is the recorder. Now, the second use of the definite article is the forward pointing. The last one was when you refer to something that has been mentioned earlier. Now, when identity is established by post modification that follows the noun. Example, it is the example that will illustrate what I am saying. Sabha returned the video recorder she bought yesterday. She bought yesterday modifies the noun video, video recorder. And there we use the word the article the. So, we have talked about of the four conditions in which definite article, definite meaning arises. We have looked at two. The first one is when you are referring back. The second one is when you are pointing forward. Now, the third one is the unique use of the. We use this when the object or group of objects or things is the only one that exists or has existed. For example, you want to say you refer to the moon. Well, there is only one moon you know. So, it has to be the moon, the earth, the south pole, the north pole, the equator, the moals, the human race. The article the, the definite article it is used with in unique, this is called the unique use. This unique use of the, it also occurs when the thing that is being referred to is understood to be unique in the context. For instance, when I am talking about the president and I use the word the, then I am referring to a particular president, the president of the United States, the president of Pakistan. Right? The town hall. There is only one town hall. So, I will refer to it as the town hall or the kitchen. Where is the, where is the bucket? And I say in the kitchen. Right? That was the third use. And the fourth use is what is referred to as the institutional use of the. This is when reference is made to something that is shared by the community. For instance, the radio, the telephone, the papers. The papers say, for instance we say what is in the paper today or what is in the papers today. And sometimes the may be omitted in the institutional use. You may say what is in, what is in the papers, what is in the paper today. Right? Now, the definite article the has what they say a generic or a typical use when it refers to what is general typical for a whole class of things. The use of the is found with count nouns. Nouns that can be counted. For instance, if you say the peacock is a beautiful bird. Here in that sentence, the peacock is a beautiful bird. There indicates the class of birds, not one individual member of the class. Now, you can also say peacocks. Peacocks are beautiful birds. Now that is the general use of the plural indefinite form. You can also say, third example, a peacock is a beautiful bird. A peacock is a beautiful bird. And now that is the generic use of the indefinite singular. Now, you will have noticed that sentence number one and sentence number two. That sentence one expresses the same meaning as sentences two and three. Now this means that when we are dealing with a whole class of things, the difference between definite and indefinite singular and plural are apt to lose their significance. We can say the peacock, which means the generic term. It refers to the species as a whole. While a peacock, again generic, it refers to any member of the species. We can say the peacock is in danger of becoming extinct, correct. The peacock is in danger of becoming extinct. But you do not say a peacock is in danger of becoming extinct. Now, the whole thing is on a table before you. And the table illustrates the ways of expressing generic meaning. Count nouns, the peacock, a peacock, peacocks. Mass nouns, water. Now, let us look at specific versus generic meaning. Now, another way of explaining the use of the definite article is to look at it from the specific versus generic meaning. The word generic means typical. The following examples will illustrate the use of the definite article with generic or typical meaning. Example, I like milk, I like Belgian glass, I like Burmese wood. Now, notice that they are all concrete mass nouns. Well, the first one is not concrete, milk. And there is no definite article. Milk over there did not have an article, glass did not have it and neither did wood, right? For instance, I say I like music, I like Punjabi mystical poetry, I like contemporary art. Now, over there, I am talking about abstract things, abstract nouns. Music, mystical poetry, contemporary art, all abstract. And the definite article is not being used over there. Look at the third instance. When I say I like dogs, horses, oriental languages, notice that I have not used the definite article. It is not being used with plural nouns, dogs, horses, languages. But notice how the following nouns which you can see on your screen, they take the definite article. And these are nouns like butter. Specific use, pass the butter please. And you have used the article, the, pass the butter please. But when you are talking about butter, the generic use, you say butter is imported nowadays or butter is imported these days. And the generic use did not take the definite article. Another example, the acting was poor but the music was super. You can use, notice there was the definite article, the. The acting was poor but the music was super. You can use acting without the definite article. I simply love acting and music. Now over there in the generic use, you did not use the definite article. In the same way, you can say before you visit Japan, you ought to learn the language. And over there language which is abstract, you are using the definite article the. But if you say linguistics is the study of language, generic use, you do not use the definite article. In the same way, if I say come and look at the puppies. Come and look at the puppies, the puppies. Specific use, the puppies. But generic, I simply love puppies. When you say that, I simply love puppies and you are talking about puppies. This is the generic use of the word puppies. And over there puppies does not take the definite article the. Now notice that in English, mass nouns and plural nouns are treated as generic, as typical. And they do not take the definite article. When these nouns, mass and plural, when they are modified by an off phrase, the definite article is normally used, especially with abstract mass nouns. Now what I have said, it will be clear to you if you look at the table before you. You say Japanese history, but when you use the off phrase, the history of Japan. History of Japan, then you will use the definite article the. Japanese history, but the history of Japan. Pakistani society, but the society of Pakistan. Early Mughal architecture, the architecture of early Mughal period. Early Mughal architecture, the architecture of early Mughal period. Child behavior, the behavior of children. Now we find that with concrete nouns and plural nouns, the can be omitted. For instance, if you say of the 18th century, furniture. You can say the furniture of the 18th century, but you can also omitted. Tropical birds, you can say the birds of the tropics. Now let us look at adjectives and group nouns. The article in its use with adjectives and group nouns. The is also used, the definite article is also used with adjectives to show number one a class of people. For instance, you may say the poor, the rich, the disabled, the wealthy, the handicapped. Or you can use the to show an abstract quality. For instance, you can say the sublime, the ridiculous, the absurd. The is also used with adjectives showing nationality, especially those ending in the shah sound like Spanish or the chah sound as French. So you can say the Dutch, the English, the French, the Spanish. The is also used with group nouns like the aristocracy, the public, the administration, the government. And it can be used with either a singular or a plural verb. For example, you can say the audience is enjoying the music. Or you can say the audience are enjoying the music. You can say the police never decide in a hurry. Or you can say the police never decides in a hurry. And there are some nouns, let us look at some nouns without the article. Now which ones are those? You will see a list before you, a list of common nouns. Even common nouns can be used without articles. And they usually occur in idiomatic expressions. You will find two columns before you in one column. And then you find column number two where they are used. In column number one, they are not used. For instance, when you are talking about institutions like bed, church, prison, hospital. So you say be in bed, be in church. He is in church. You do not have to say he is in the church. He is in prison. You do not have to say he is in the prison. He is in prison. He is in hospital. The British use is without the article, be in hospital. But when you talk about, you can use the. When you say walk past the church, lie down on the bed, drive by the prison, live by the hospital. You are talking about, still talking about institutions. You can, you use, you do not use the definite article normally. When you are talking about school, you can be at school, you can be at college, you can be at sea. Or you can be at the university, at university. But when you talk about, when you can use it, when you say go into the school. Or the college tower, the college tower has collapsed. Or you can look out towards the sea, you can work at the university. In the same way, you can be at home, you can go home, you can be in town, leave town. Now notice in all of these, the definite article is missing. But when you say approach the town, as we approach the town, there the definite article has been used. When you talk about means of transport, there are certain items, certain ways where you do not use the article. For instance, you can come by bike, you can come by bus, you can leave by boat or by ship. You can travel by train, by plane, by aeroplane. But when you say ride on the bike, catch the bus, get on the boat, get into the train, get off the plane. There the definite article has been used. And in the same way, there are certain times of the day where you do use the definite article, the, and there are certain uses where you don't. For instance, you say at dawn, at day break, at sunrise, and you do not use the definite article. In the same way, when you say during the day, during the night. In the afternoon, invisible in the dusk, wake up in the middle of the night. Right? And then, it is the same with meals. You can have breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner, supper. But when you talk specifically and you say, were you at their lunch for the stars? Or have you made dirty? Their dinner was well cooked. But when you say dinner is at 8, you don't use the definite article. In the same way, you can say they walked arm in arm. They walked hand in hand. They are husband and wife. All expressions without the definite article. But you can say, she took him by the arm. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. She is the wife of a famous pop star. So, it's, there are times, there are instances where you use the definite article and there are constructions where you do not. Now, let us look at articles and proper nouns. Proper nouns usually don't take articles. They take no articles. For instance, somebody's personal name, Hillary O'Neill. You don't say the Hillary O'Neill unless you want to emphasize something particular about Hillary O'Neill. But when you talk about the President of the United States, then you use the President of Pakistan. The Lord, meaning God. The Duke of Edinburgh, a special person. The. You use, when you talk about family terms, for instance, if you are addressing, hello, mummy, hello, daddy. You don't say hello, the mummy, hello, the daddy. When you're talking about aunts and uncles and you say, did you thank aunty? Did you thank uncle for the present he's given you or for the book he's given you? You don't use the. Did you thank the aunty or did you thank the uncle? In the same way, when you are talking about calendar items, names of festivals, you don't use the definite article. You don't say the Christmas, the Eid. It's Christmas. It's Eid. It's Independence Day. It's Republic Day. In the same way, when you're talking about names of months and the days of the week, you do not say the January, the February. It's January, February, March, Tuesday, Wednesday. Names of the season. The seasons may have the article omitted. For instance, I met them in summer. But you can also say in the summer of 1945, right? Geographical names. Normally there is no article whether the geographical name is modified, pre-modified or not. For instance, you don't say the Asia. It's Asia. Central Asia. East Africa. Names of continents. There is no article. Names of countries. Ancient Bhutan. Modern Pakistan. Medieval India. Victorian England. But there are exceptions. There are always exceptions to the rule. And you say the Sahara. The Punjab. It is not Punjab. It is always the Punjab. The United Kingdom. It's not United Kingdom. It's always the United Kingdom. The Lebanon. The Middle East. The Ukraine. The Crimea. Right? In the same way cities and towns don't take the definite article. You don't say the Rome. The Lahore. The Karachi. Or the Sibi. Or the Kuwaita. But there are exceptions again. For instance, the Hague. The West End. The East End. In the same way you have lakes and mountains. Mount Everest. Mount K2. There are plural names. For instance, the Himalayas. Now these are names that do take the definite articles. And they are in the plural. The Himalayas. The Alps. The Rockies. You can say the Austins. That is the Austin family. The Sheikhs. The Shahs. The Netherlands. The Midlands. The Indus. The Ravi. The Atlantic. The Pacific. The Suez Canal. The Panama Canal. Again, you have public places. Hotels, restaurants, cinemas, clubs, museums. And they do take the definite article. You are referring to the Hilton. They are staying where? They are staying at the Hilton. The Mughal. We had dinner at the Mughal. That is the name of a restaurant. The Globe. The Gymkhana. They are dining at the Gymkhana. The Lahore Museum. Or the British Museum. Magazines and periodicals also normally have no article. Newsweek. Time. Punch. Mag. New Scientist. Well-known. Established. Journals. And they do not. Now let us quickly go through. Have a short practice. Insert an article where you think it is needed. Take the first one. We went to the most expensive restaurant in town. That sentence requires an article. The place is we went to the most expensive restaurant. Number two. Do you want to watch television this evening? No. That sentence does not require any article. Sentence number three. Last night we went out for a meal in a restaurant. And the last sentence. Braille is a system of reading and writing by touch for the blind. Another short quick practice. Look at those five sentences. Take the first sentence. I am afraid of dogs or the dogs. It is dogs. Number two. Can you pass salt or the salt? It is the salt. Women are sometimes or the women are sometimes better teachers than men. It is women and it is men. In sentence number four it is the second world war. Not second world war. Number five. All the books. Number six. It is college. Tom left college without taking his exams. Number seven. After work. Not the work. After work and usually goes home. Another quick practice. See which ones are correct. Can you spot those? Take the first one. Next year we are going to we are going skiing in the swills apps. Number two. Nile is the longest river in Africa. Number four. There are many different languages spoken in the Far East. Number four is correct. Now they live in the United Arab Emirates. Number five. South of England is warmer than North. No, that is not correct. The South of England is warmer than the North. Number six. The United Kingdom consists of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Number seven. The planes of the Punjab are very hot in May and June. And the last sentence, it does not need any definite article. Next. You have got another exercise. Choose the correct form with or without the. Number one. One of the oldest buildings in Lahore is the old fort. Number two. Which hotel are you staying at? The Sheraton. Yesterday I opened an account at Standard Chartered Bank. Number four. Have you ever visited the University of Management Sciences? Right. Where did you buy those shoes? At services. The President of the United States lives in the White House. Number seven. Is there a cinema hall near here? Yes. The Odeon on Montgomery Road. We looked at articles in great detail. The reason why we looked at articles is that Pakistani students make mistakes in this area. I hope you have learned something from today's lesson and you will avoid making these mistakes. Allah Hafiz, see you next time.