   The '''articles in English''' include the definite article ''the'' and the indefinite articles ''a'' and ''an''.  ==General usage==  In English, nouns must in most cases be preceded by an article that specifies the definiteness of the noun. The definite article is ''the'' in all cases, while indefiniteness is expressed with ''a'' or ''an'' for singular nouns or the zero article (i.e., the absence of an article) for plural or non-count nouns.     singular plural/non-count   indefinite before a vowel sound ''an'' (none)   before a consonant sound ''a''   definite  ''the''  English articles   For example,  : '''''The''' youngest girl brought books and '''an''' apple.   Here, ''youngest girl'' is definite, meaning that the listener will know which girl is the one, while ''books'' and ''apple'' are indefinite, as they are being mentioned for the first time.  English grammar requires that the appropriate article, if any, be used with each noun, with several exceptions:Greenbaum, Sidney (1996) ''The Oxford English Grammar''. Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-861250-8 * most proper nouns : ''Rome was ruled by Augustus.'' * pronouns and noun phrases : ''Nobody liked what he said.'' * nouns with another non-number determiner such as ''this'', ''each'', ''my'', ''no'', or ''a'' : ''My sister wrote this song about America's history.''  In most cases, the article is the first word of its noun phrase, preceding all other adjectives.Disterheft, Dorothy (2004) ''Advanced Grammar''. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice-Hall ISBN 0-13-048820-8 There are only a few exceptions—e.g., ''quite a story'', ''too great a loss'', ''all the time'', ''such a nice man''. : '''''The''' little old red bag held '''a''' very big surprise.''  In alphabetizing titles and phrases, articles are usually excluded from consideration, since being so common makes them more of a hindrance than a help in finding a desired item. For example, ''The Comedy of Errors'' is alphabetized before ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', because ''the'' and ''a'' are ignored and ''comedy'' alphabetizes before ''midsummer''. In an index, the former work might be written &quot;Comedy of Errors, The&quot;, with the article moved to the end.  In contexts where concision is especially valued, such as headlines, signs, labels, and notes, articles are often omitted along with certain other function words.  For example, rather than ''The mayor was attacked'', a newspaper headline would say just ''Mayor attacked''.  ==Definite article==  The definite article in English is '''''the''''' denoting person(s) or thing(s) already mentioned, under discussion, implied, or familiar.  The article &quot;the&quot; is used with singular only, and uncountable nouns when both the speaker and hearer would know the thing or idea already. The article ''the'' is often used as the very first part of a noun phrase in English. However, in English, unlike in some other languages such as French, the definite article is omitted before familiar but intangible concepts such as &quot;happiness&quot;: ''Happiness is contagious'' is correct, whereas *''The happiness is contagious'' is not unless a very specific example of happiness is referred to.  ===Pronunciation=== According to the ''Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary'', &quot;the&quot; is pronounced with a schwa (as in &quot;uh&quot;) before words beginning with consonants (e.g. ''b, c, d, f''), and usually with a different vowel sound  (as &quot;y&quot; in &quot;easy&quot;) before words beginning with vowels and in cases of proper nouns or emphasis.  In some Northern England dialects of English, ''the'' is pronounced  (with a dental t) or as a glottal stop, usually written in eye dialect as ; in some dialects it reduces to nothing. This is known as definite article reduction.  In dialects that do not have  (voiced dental fricative), ''the'' is pronounced with the voiced dental plosive, as in  or ).  ===Etymology=== ''The'' and ''that'' are common developments from the same Old English system. Old English had a definite article ''se'', in the masculine gender, ''seo'' (feminine), and ''þæt'' (neuter). In Middle English these had all merged into ''þe'', the ancestor of the Modern English word ''the''.  In Middle English, ''the'' (þe) was frequently abbreviated as a ''þ'' with a small ''e'' above it, similar to the abbreviation for ''that'', which was a ''þ'' with a small ''t'' above it. During the latter Middle English and Early Modern English periods, the letter Thorn (þ) in its common script, or cursive, form came to resemble a ''y'' shape. As such the use of a ''y'' with an ''e'' above it as an abbreviation became common. This can still be seen in reprints of the 1611 edition of the King James Version of the Bible in places such as Romans 15:29, or in the Mayflower Compact. Historically the article was never pronounced with a ''y'' sound, even when so written, although the modern, 19th and 20th century pseudo-archaic usage such as &quot;Ye Olde Englishe Tea Shoppe&quot; can be pronounced with a ''y'' sound.  ===Geographic uses=== In English most cities and countries never take the definite article, but there are many that do. It is commonly used with many country names that derive from names of island groups (the Philippines), mountain ranges (the Lebanon), deserts (the Sudan), seas, rivers and geographic regions (the Middle East).Swan, Michael ''How English Works'', p. 25 Such use is declining, but for some countries it remains common. Since the independence of Ukraine (or the Ukraine), most style guides have advised dropping the article,[ Ukraine or &quot;the Ukraine&quot;?] by Andrew Gregorovich, infoukes.com in part because the Ukrainian Government was concerned about a similar issue involving prepositions. Another example is Argentina, which is now more usual than 'the Argentine', which is old fashioned, although others continue, such as The Bronx and The Hague.  The definite article is always used for countries whose names are descriptions of the form of the state rather than being purely geographical; for example, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Czech Republic.  The U.S. Department of State[ State.gov] and the CIA World Factbook[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2142.html CIA.gov] show the definite article with only two countries: The Bahamas and The Gambia. Although in title, these references do not include the definite article for the Netherlands, in the text description the name of the country is never used without it.  ==Indefinite article==  &quot;'''A'''&quot; and &quot;'''an'''&quot; function as the indefinite forms of the grammatical article in the English language and can also represent the number one. ''An'' is the older form (related to ''one'', cognate to German ''ein''; etc.), now used before words starting with a vowel sound, regardless of whether the word begins with a vowel letter.[ How to Use Articles (a/an/the) - The OWL at Purdue]  Examples: ''a'' light-water reactor; ''a'' sanitary sewer overflow; ''an'' SSO;  ''a'' HEPA filter (because HEPA is pronounced as a word rather than as letters); ''an'' hour; ''a'' ewe; ''a'' one-armed bandit; ''an'' heir; ''a'' unicorn (begins with 'yu', a consonant sound).  ===Juncture loss=== In a process called juncture loss, the ''n'' has wandered back and forth between words beginning with vowels over the history of the language, where sometimes it would be ''a nuncle'' and is now ''an uncle''. The Oxford English Dictionary gives such examples as ''smot hym on the hede with a nege tool'' from 1448 for ''smote him on the head with an edge tool'' and ''a nox'' for ''an ox'' and ''a napple'' for ''an apple''. Sometimes the change has been permanent. For example, ''a newt'' was once ''an ewt'' (earlier ''euft'' and ''eft''), ''a nickname'' was once ''an eke-name'', where ''eke'' means &quot;extra&quot; (as in ''eke out'' meaning &quot;add to&quot;), and in the other direction, &quot;a napron&quot; became &quot;an apron&quot; and &quot;a naddre&quot; became &quot;an adder.&quot; &quot;Napron&quot; itself meant &quot;little tablecloth&quot; and is related to the word &quot;napkin&quot;. An oft-cited but inaccurate example is ''an orange'': despite what is often claimed, English never used ''a norange''. Although the initial ''n'' was in fact lost through juncture loss, this happened before the word was borrowed in English (see orange (word)).  ===Discrimination between ''a'' and ''an''=== The choice of &quot;a&quot; or &quot;an&quot; is determined by phonetic rules rather than by spelling convention. &quot;An&quot; is employed in speech to remove the awkward glottal stop (momentary silent pause) that is otherwise required between &quot;a&quot; and a following word. For example, &quot;an X-ray&quot; is less awkward to pronounce than &quot;a X-ray,&quot; which has a glottal stop between &quot;a&quot; and &quot;X-ray&quot;. The following paragraphs are spelling rules for &quot;an&quot; that can be used if the phonetic rule is not understood.  The form &quot;an&quot; is always prescribed before words beginning with a silent ''h'', such as &quot;honorable&quot;, &quot;heir&quot;, &quot;hour&quot;, and, in American English, &quot;herb&quot;. Some British dialects (for example, Cockney) silence all initial ''h'''s (h-dropping) and so employ &quot;an&quot; all the time: e.g., &quot;an 'elmet&quot;. The article &quot;an&quot; is sometimes seen in such phrases as &quot;an historic&quot;, &quot;an heroic&quot; and &quot;an hotel of excellence&quot; in both British and American usage, although usually violating the phonetic rule in such cases.  ''Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage'' allows &quot;both ''a'' and ''an'' are used in writing ''a historic an historic''&quot;.  An analogous distinction to that of &quot;a&quot; and &quot;an&quot; was once present for possessive determiners as well. For example, &quot;my&quot; and &quot;thy&quot; became &quot;mine&quot; and &quot;thine&quot; before a vowel, as in &quot;mine eyes&quot;.  This usage is now obsolete.  The appearance of ''an'' or ''a'' in front of words beginning with ''h'' is not limited to stress. Sometimes there is a historical root as well. Words that may have had a route into English via French (where all ''h''s are unpronounced) may have ''an'' to avoid an unusual pronunciation. This never applied to words of germanic origin, as the ''h''s would be pronounced and  ''a'' used. Further, some words starting with vowels may have a preceding ''a'' because they are pronounced as if beginning with an initial consonant. &quot;Ewe&quot; and &quot;user&quot; have a preceding ''a'' because they are pronounced with an initial ''y'' consonant sound. &quot;One-eyed pirate&quot; also has a preceding ''a'' because it is pronounced with an initial ''w'' consonant sound.  To add emphasis to a noun, the preceding indefinite article is often pronounced as a long ''a'' (just as the definite article would be pronounced as &quot;thee&quot; in such cases), whether or not the schwa, or even &quot;an&quot; would be the appropriate usage.  ===Representing the number one=== In addition to serving as an article, ''a'' and ''an'' are also used as synonyms for the number one, as in &quot;make a wish&quot;, &quot;a hundred&quot;. ''An'' was originally an unstressed form of the number ''ān'' 'one'.  ''A'' and ''an'' are also used to express a proportional relationship, such as &quot;a dollar a day&quot; or &quot;$150 an ounce&quot; or &quot;A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play&quot;, although historically this use of &quot;a&quot; and &quot;an&quot; does not come from the same word as the articles.  The mathematically-minded might heed H. S. Wall's reminder that the statement ''&quot;I have a son&quot;'' does not necessarily imply that ''&quot;I have exactly one son&quot;'' or that ''&quot;I have only sons&quot;''. In other words, &quot;The ''little'' words count.&quot;Hubert Stanley Wall, ''Creative Mathematics''  ===Similarities in other languages=== In Hungarian, ''a'' and ''az'' are used the same way, except that in Hungarian, ''a(z)'' is the definite article. Juncture loss occurred in this case as well, since ''az'' was the only article in use in 16th century Hungarian (e.g. in the poetry of Bálint Balassa).  In Greek and Sanskrit, ''a-'' and ''an-'', meaning &quot;not&quot; or &quot;without&quot;, are root words, cognate with Latin ''in-'' (when used as a negative) and English ''un-'', meaning without.  Italian has many articles (8 + juncture loss) basically expressing the same ideas of definite and indefinite as English ones. The article ''the'' corresponds to ''il'', ''lo'', ''la'', ''i'', ''gli'' or ''le'' indifferently (remembering that Italian has masculine and feminine nouns, so that it is not indifferent to join any one of those articles with any Italian noun, indiscriminately) and the English articles ''a'' / ''an'' corresponds to Italian ''un'' or ''una'' (again, the masculine / feminine distinction must be taken into account). Moreover, no geographical rule applies to any of the Italian articles corresponding to the article ''the'', so that, for example, it is correct to say ''la Germania'' which means ''Germany'', in English.  