Use of Articles with Common Nouns

ARTICLE

The Usage

The Formation

Some of the collective nouns, however, regularly required a plural verb.

Here belong: people (люди, народ), police and cattle.

Note 1. The noun people meaning nationality can have a singular and plural form: a people - peoples.

Note 2. A number of (несколько, ряд) usually agrees with a plural verb.
e.g.: There were quite a number of people watching the game.

CASE OF NOUNS

Case is the form of the noun which shows the relation of the noun to other words in the sentence. English nouns have two case forms: the common case and the genitive
(possessive) case.

e.g.: the child - the child's fatheran hour - an hour's walk

The possessive case is formed by means of the suffix -"s or the (-') alone. The -'s is pronounced:

[z] after vowels and voiced consonants: boy's, girl's,
[s] after voiceless consonants: student's, wife's,
[iz] after sibilants; price's, judge's.

The -'s is added to singular nouns and to irregular plural nouns: e.g.: men's, children's, women's.

The apostrophe (-') alone is added to regular plural nouns: e.g.: parents', workers', and also to proper names ending is -s: e.g.: Hercules' labours.

Some other proper names ending in -s may take the suffix -'s:

e.g.: Burns' (Burns's) poems. Dickens' (Dickens's) novels.

But the normal spelling is with the apostrophe only. With the compound nouns the suffix's is always added to the final component:

e.g.: the passer - by's remark.

The -'s genitive commonly occurs:

1) with animate nouns denoting personal names (Mary's job, Nick's father):

2) personal nouns: (my friend's visit);

3) collective nouns (the team's victory);

4) higher animals (the lion's cage).

Sometimes it is possible to use the possessive case with certain kinds of inanimate nouns and abstract notions:

1) with temporal nouns (a few day's trip);

2) with nouns denoting distance and measure (a mile's distance, a shilling's work);

3) with geographic names of continents, countries, cities, towns and universities (Europe's future. London's water supply);

4) with locative nouns (the island's outline, the school's history);

5) with a few other nouns (the sun's rays, the ship's crew; the play's title, nature's sleep, etc.);

6) in set phrases (in one's mind's eye. a pin's head, to one's heart's content, at one's finger's end, for goodness' sake, at one's wit's end, out of harm's way, duty's call, a needle's point).

The article is a structural part of speech used with nouns.

There are two articles in English: the indefinite article a (an) and the definite
article the. The meaningful absence of the article is called the zero article.

The indefinite article has developed from the old English numeral an (one)
and as a result of its origin it is used only with countable nouns in the singular.
The form a is used before words beginning with a consonant sound (e.g. a cat,
a nice day).The form an is used before words beginning with a vowel sound
(e.g. an hour, an interesting story).

The definite article has developed from the Old English demonstrative pronoun se (that) and is used with nouns in the singular and in the plural.

The use of the indefinite article implies that the object is presented as belonging to a class.

The use of the definite article shows that a particular object is meant.

The absence of articles (the zero article) with class nouns in the plural, with abstract nouns and nouns of materials has grammatical significance: it shows that the nouns are used in a general sense.

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