Article (grammar)

In grammar, an article is any of a small set of words or affixes (such as a, an, and the in English) used with nouns to limit or give definiteness to the application. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. These words represent a specific object, depending on the situation, but a is less specific than the.

Articles combine with nouns to form noun phrases, and typically specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun phrase. In English, the and a (rendered as an when followed by a vowel sound) are the definite and indefinite articles respectively. Articles in many other languages also carry additional grammatical information such as gender, number, and case. Articles are part of a broader category called determiners, which also include demonstratives, possessive determiners, and quantifiers. In linguistic interlinear glossing, articles are abbreviated as ART.