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An important role in English grammar is played by determiners – words or phrases that precede a noun or noun phrase and serve to express its reference in the context. The most common of these are the definite and indefinite articles, ''the'' and ''a(n)''. Other determiners in English include demonstratives such as ''this'' and ''that'', possessives such as ''my'' and ''the boy's'', and quantifiers such as ''all'', ''many'' and ''three''. In many contexts the presence of some determiner is required in order to form a complete noun phrase. However, in some cases complete noun phrases are formed without any determiner (sometimes referred to as "zero determiner" or "zero article"), as in the sentence ''Apples are fruit.'' Determiners can also be used in certain combinations, as in ''my many friends'' or ''all the chairs''. ==Overview== The terminology used in accounts of English grammar to refer to determiners is very varied. Sometimes the term is not used at all, and the words classed here as determiners (apart from the articles) are classed as adjectives (but see below). In the present article a broad view is taken of what constitutes a determiner; it includes the articles and words and phrases that can substitute for them, as well as words and phrases serving as quantifiers. This means that determiners as construed here include words from the determiner class, such as ''the'', ''this'', ''my'', ''many'', etc., as well as nominal possessives (''John's'', ''the tall boy's'') and other specifying or quantifying phrases such as ''more than three'', ''almost all'', and ''this size'' (as in ''this size shoes''). Note that many words or phrases that serve as determiners can also play the role of pronouns; for example, the word ''all'' is a determiner in the sentences ''All men are equal'' and ''I know all the rules'', but a pronoun in ''All's well that ends well''. In other cases there is a related but distinct pronoun form; for example the determiners ''my'' and ''no'' have corresponding pronouns ''mine'' and ''none''. Determiners that consist of phrases rather than single words might be called ''determiner phrases'', although this should probably be avoided as the term is also used to refer to a noun phrase headed by a determiner (see Determiner phrase). An alternative term is ''phrasal determiners''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「English determiners」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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