Function

Determiners are words placed in front of a noun to make it clear what the noun refers to.

The word people by itself is a general reference to some group of human beings. If someone says these people, we know which group they are talking about, and if they say a lot of people we know how big the group is.

These and a lot of are determiners in these sentences.

Classes of Determiners

There are several classes of determiners:

• Definite and Indefinite articles

the, a, an

• Demonstratives

this, that, these, those

• Possessives

my, your, his, her, its, our, their

• Quantifiers

a few, a little, much, many, a lot of, most, some, any, enough, etc.

• Numbers

one, ten, thirty, etc.

• Distributives

all, both, half, either, neither, each, every

• Difference words

other, another

• Question words

Which, what, whose

• Defining words

which, whose

The following words are pre-determiners. They go before determiners, such as articles: such and what, half, rather, quite