If the language distinguishes (within numerals and genitives) between determiners and modifiers such that one function permits the use of the
indefinite article and the other function does not, then it is the determiner that tends to permit the use of the
indefinite article and it is the modifier that tends to block the use of the
indefinite article.
The end of the
indefinite article and the word that follows it must be either a consonant then a vowel or a vowel then a consonant.
The null determiner is not to be regarded as the plural counterpart of the
indefinite article. One piece of evidence used to support this assumption is the observation that in opacity-inducing contexts (e.g.
Some are words by themselves: the
indefinite article a, the first-person pronoun I and the vocative O.
The authors call upon graduate experience as students and teachers, and as much as anything, they argue that the 1960s brought about the decline of science as method in the social sciences and humanities, what might be called the shift from the definite to the
indefinite article: not the history of religion, for example, but a history of religion.
There are a few tales out of school about the difficulties that some of the other teachers had with the English language, resulting in particular from the lack of a definite and
indefinite article in Russian.
It is a pity, however, that the opportunity offered by the paperback edition to correct spelling and grammatical errors, and the author's apparent aversion to both the definite and the
indefinite article, was not taken.
Amazing what a difference an
indefinite article makes.
Judge Halpern noted that the phrase "tax required to be shown on a return" was a general qualification, since the
indefinite article "a" was used, instead of the definite article "the," in the statute.
The five plays of the canon of George Peele are unusual in their comparative avoidance of 'an' as a variant of the
indefinite article.(1) When the rate of 'an' is expressed as a percentage of the total number of instances of the
indefinite article ('a' plus 'an'), Peele's five plays yield a figure of 5.835 per cent.