The articles in English

Abstract

After considering the history of the label ‘article’, this paper shows how, although the and a(n) do make up a grammatical system in Modern English (being mutually exclusive), the two articles have quite different roles in the grammar. The developed from a demonstrative and is nowadays only sometimes substitutable for one. A(n) developed from the number modifier one and has diverged far from it. The generic use of the two articles is contrasted, and also what happens when there is an underlying sequence of articles.