ARTICLES.
Definition.
175. An article is a
limiting word, not descriptive, which cannot be used alone, but always joins to
a substantive word to denote a particular thing, or a group or class of things,
or any individual of a group or class.
Kinds.
176. Articles are either
definite or indefinite.
The is the definite article, since it points out a
particular individual, or group, or class.
An or a is the indefinite article, because
it refers to any one of a group or class of things.
An and a are different forms of the same
word, the older ān.
Their origin.
177. The article the
comes from an old demonstrative adjective (sē, sēo,
ðat, later thē, thēo, that) which was
also an article in Old English. In Middle English the became an article,
and that remained a demonstrative adjective.
An or a came from the old numeral
ān, meaning one.
Two relics.
Our expressions the one, the other, were
formerly that one, that other; the latter is still preserved in
the expression, in vulgar English, the tother. Not only this is kept in
the Scotch dialect, but the former is used, these occurring as the tane, the
tother, or the tane, the tither; for example,—
We ca' her sometimes the tane, sometimes the
tother.—Scott.
An before vowel sounds, a
before consonant sounds.
178. Ordinarily an
is used before vowel sounds, and a before consonant sounds. Remember
that a vowel sound does not necessarily mean beginning with a vowel, nor
does consonant sound mean beginning
with a consonant, because English spelling does not coincide closely with the
sound of words. Examples: "a house," "an orange," "a
European," "an honor," "a yelling crowd."
An with consonant sounds.
179. Many writers use
an before h, even when not silent, when the word is not accented
on the first syllable.
An historian, such as we have been attempting to
describe, would indeed be an intellectual prodigy.—Macaulay.
The Persians were an heroic people like the
Greeks.—Brewer.
He [Rip] evinced an hereditary disposition to
attend to anything else but his business.—Irving.
An habitual submission of the understanding to
mere events and images.—Coleridge.
An hereditary tenure of these offices.—Thomas
Jefferson. |
