Page 34 - (DK) Help Your Kids with Language Arts

32 GRAMMAR

Determiners SEE ALSO

20–21 Parts of speech
DETERMINERS ARE ALWAYS PLACED BEFORE A NOUN,   22–23 Nouns
26–27 Adjectives
AND HELP TO DEFINE IT.  30–31 Articles
Pronouns 34–35 
Articles are determiners, and other determiners work in much the
Verb agreement 52–53 
same way: They are used in front of nouns to indicate whether
something specific or something of a particular type is being referred to.

Determiners and adjectives
Determiners are often considered to determiners be compared or • Many sentences do not make
be a subclass of adjectives and, like graded. They precede the noun sense without determiners.
adjectives, they belong to nouns and and include words like several, Adjectives, by contrast, are
modify nouns. Unlike adjectives, those, many, my, and your, as optional; they color the words
there is rarely more than one well as articles (the, a, and an) rather than glue them together.
determiner for each noun, nor can and numbers. • Most noun phrases only use
one determiner, but there are
The determiner
always precedes exceptions: for example, “all the
any adjectives, bats” and “both my cats.”
which, in turn, adjective plural noun
precede the noun.

definite article

GLO S S A RY
Demonstrative determiners
Cardinal number A counting
number such as one, two, Demonstrative determiners give an idea of distance between
or twenty-one.
the speaker and the person or thing that he or she is referring
Linking verb A verb such to. This (singular) and these (plural) are used to describe things
as be that joins the subject that are nearby. That (singular) and those (plural) are used for
of a sentence to a word
or phrase—often an things that are farther away.
adjective—that describes the
subject. This indicates a witch who is
Ordinal number The form not present at the meeting.
of a number that includes
first, second, and twenty-first.
The witches are discussing
a noise they can hear—that
of shrieking bats—so this
is used.