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ARTICLE |
Divisions of Grammar Definitions - Etymology.
An Article is a word placed before a noun to show whether the noun is
used in a particular or general sense.
There are two articles, a or an and the. A or an is called the
indefinite article because it does not point put any particular person or
thing but indicates the noun in its widest sense; thus, a man means any
man whatsoever of the species or race.
The is called the definite article because it points out some particular
person or thing; thus, the man means some particular individual.
NOUN
A noun is the name of any person, place or thing as John, London,
book. Nouns are proper and common.
Proper nouns are names applied to particular persons or places.
Common nouns are names applied to a whole kind or species.
Nouns are inflected by number, gender and case.
Number is that inflection of the noun by which we indicate whether it
represents one or more than one.
Gender is that inflection by which we signify whether the noun is the
name of a male, a female, of an inanimate object or something which has
no distinction of sex.
Case is that inflection of the noun which denotes the state of the
person, place or thing represented, as the subject of an affirmation or
question, the owner or possessor of something mentioned, or the object of
an action or of a relation.
Thus in the example, "John tore the leaves of Sarah's book," the
distinction between book which represents only one object and leaves
which represent two or more objects of the same kind is called Number;
the distinction of sex between John, a male, and Sarah, a female, and
book and leaves, things which are inanimate and neither male nor
female, is called Gender; and the distinction of state between John,
the person who tore the book, and the subject of the affirmation, Mary,
the owner of the book, leaves the objects torn, and book the object
related to leaves, as the whole of which they were a part, is called
Case.
Next: ADJECTIVE
Previous: THE PARTS OF SPEECH
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