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Degree determiners mark a noun phrase as indefinite. They also convey imprecise quantification, with many and much expressing a large quantity and few and little expressing a small quantity. Degree determiners are unusual in that they inflect for grade, a feature typical of adjectives and adverbs but not determiners.
a; a few; a little; all; an; another; any; anybody; anyone; anything; anywhere; both; certain (also adjective) each; either; enough; every; everybody; everyone ...
Indefinite pronouns are associated with indefinite determiners of a similar or identical form (such as every, any, all, some). A pronoun can be thought of as replacing a noun phrase, while a determiner introduces a noun phrase and precedes any adjectives that modify the noun.
An indefinite article is an article that marks an indefinite noun ... Linguists interested in X-bar theory causally link zero articles to nouns lacking a determiner. [6]
Determiners are distinguished from pronouns by the presence of nouns. [6] Each went his own way. (Each is used as a pronoun, without an accompanying noun.) Each man went his own way. (Each is used as a determiner, accompanying the noun man.) Plural personal pronouns can act as determiners in certain constructions. [7] We linguists aren’t stupid.
A difficulty with this reasoning, however, is posed by indefinite pronouns (one, few, many), which can easily appear together with a determiner, e.g. the old one. The DP-analysis must therefore draw a distinction between definite and indefinite pronouns, whereby definite pronouns are classified as determiners, but indefinite pronouns as nouns.
The articles in English are the definite article the and the indefinite articles a and an.They are the two most common determiners.The definite article is the default determiner when the speaker believes that the listener knows the identity of a common noun's referent (because it is obvious, because it is common knowledge, or because it was mentioned in the same sentence or an earlier sentence).
The determiners starting with some-, any, no, and every- and ending with -one, -body, -thing, -place (e.g., someone, nothing) are often called indefinite pronouns, though others consider them to be compound determiners. [2]: 423 The generic pronouns one and the generic use of you are sometimes called indefinite.