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2. Uniqueness and Inclusiveness

The other main tradition concerning the meaning of definiteness generally deals with the concept of uniqueness – “the existence of one and only one entity meeting the descriptive content of the noun phrase (NP)”. Viewed in this way, the difference between the and a in the following example is obvious.

(4) a I met an owner of El Azteco.

b I met the owner of El Azteco.

While in (4) a the sentence says that there is at least one owner of El Azteco, sentence b must be interpreted as there being one and only one possible referent of the definite NP.

However, the use of the definite article is legitimate to that extent that the addressee associates it with the bride when speaking about a wedding and he would naturally relate the NP the bride to the bride at the particular wedding.

Similarly as in the case of familiarity, the notion of uniqueness has also been extended by employing the idea of “inclusiveness”. The term was introduced for the first time by Hawkins, and gives an interpretation especially to the question how it is possible for plural or mass noun phrases to have a unique referent. Let us come back to example (4) by Lyons. Provided that there are more than one owner, the sentence could contain plural definite noun phrase as well:

(5) I met the owners of El Azteco.

Then, however, the sentence would be only then correct, when the reference were to all the owners. In other words: if there were three owners of El Azteco and I met just two of them then the use of the definite article in (5) would be infelicitous.

The same situation comes up with mass noun phrases:

(6) We went to the local pub this lunch time. They’ve started chilling the beer.

The reference is to the whole amount of the beer they have in the pub and thus, all the beer is served chilled.

Definiteness, at least with plural and mass noun phrases, involves not uniqueness but inclusiveness … the reference is to the totality of the objects or mass in the context which satisfy the description.

In this sense uniqueness is to be taken for a special case of inclusiveness; in singular the totality of the objects that satisfy the context is just one.

Finally, let me allow a short remark on indefinites and uniqueness. Lyons says explicitly that “a is neutral with respect to uniqueness rather than signalling non-uniqueness”.

(7) Mary bought a car.

The use of the definite article implies a unique referent whilst the use the indefinite article allows both the same interpretation (there is just one car) and another one where the car referred to is one of several [7].
2 Development of articles in English
There are no jumps and leaps in the life of the language. Phonetic, lexical and grammatical changes are accumulated gradually, developing as variants and coexisting forms. This gradual accumulation finally changes the shape of the language so much that one can hardly recognize it. Indeed, if the original of the Old English epic poem “Beowulf”, Chaucer’s poetry and a contemporary English text were shown to “a man in the street”, he would say that they were written in different languages, while in fact it is the same English language but the texts refer to different periods [2].

Traditionally the history of the English language is divided into three periods: Old English, Middle English and New English. The transition from Old English to Middle English is usually associated with the date of the Norman Conquest (1066); the transition from Middle English to New English is often connected with the consolidation of the monarchy, the end of the Wars of the Roses 1455-1485 or with the introduction of printing in the country. The New English period is traditionally defined as starting with the 15th and lasting till now. Within it scholars specify the Early New English period (16 th, 17th till the Epoch of Restoration).

Of course, one should not look upon those dates as absolute. It would be absurd to think that for instance in 1065 Old English was spoken in Britain and in 1067 - Middle English. It is only natural to admit that in the depth of Old English there appeared and developed the features that finally made Middle English; and in the structure of Middle English so features of Old English coexisted with the new phenomena [11].

The period of Old English is 9^th and 10^th century.

The English language uses the Latin alphabet of 26 consonants and vowels. In the beginning there were very few words of general use like, words of kinship: faeder, modor, brothor, sweostor, anddohtor; 25 names with their inflections like mon, men (man, men) and some adjectives and verbs.

There were two demonstratives: se, seo, thaet (that) and thes, theos (this) but there were no (‘a’ or ‘the’) articles. So ‘the good man’ was written as ‘se (that) goda mon,’ and ‘a good man’ was written as ‘an (one) goda mon.’
The more frequent was that used where we might have a definite article; it can be translated as either ‘the’ or ‘that, those.’ Its forms were as follows:

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nom.	Sē, se	Þæt	sēo	Þā
Acc.	Þone	Þæt	þā	Þā
Gen.	Þæs	Þæs	þære	þāra
Dat.	Þæm	Þæm	þære	Þæm
Ins.	þӯ, þon, þē	þӯ, þon, þē

Genders were distinguished only in the singular; in the plural no gender distinction was made. The masculine and neuter forms were alike in the genitive, dative, and instrumental. There was no distinct instrumental in the feminine or the plural, the dative being used in that function instead. By analogy with the other forms of the word, sē/se and sēo were superseded in late Old English by the variants þē/þe and þēo.

The Modern English definite article the developed from the masculine nominative þe, remodeled by analogy from se. When we use the in comparisons, however, as in “The sooner, the better,” it is a development of the neuter instrumental form þē, the literal sense being something like ‘By this [much] sooner, by this [much] better.’ The Modern English demonstrative that is from the neuter nominative-accusative þæt, and its plural those has been borrowed from the other demonstrative.

The other, less frequently used Old English demonstrative (usually translated ‘this, pl. these’) had the nominative singular forms þēs (masculine), þis (neuter, whence ModE this), and þēos (feminine). Its nominative-accusative plural, þās, developed into those and was confused with tho (from þā), the earlier plural of that.

Consequently in Middle English a new plural was developed for this, namely these [12].

2.2. Development of Articles in Middle English and Modern English Articles

Old English noun was characterized by the forms of grammatical gender, case, number and belonging to a particular declension.

Already in OE the reduction of declension had begun, e.g. many i-stem and u-stem nouns were influenced by the a-stems and o-stems. In ME the distinction of strong and weak declensions was lost. First it happened in the Northern and Central (Midland) dialects (in 11th - 12th centuries) and somewhat later in Southern dialects.

Gender was lost at the beginning of the Middle English period: in the Northern and Central (Midland) dialects in 11th - 12th centuries and somewhat later in Southern dialects.

The case system was weakened and consequently simplified as a result of the development of homonymous case forms (you must remember many case forms were homonymous as early as in the Old English language).

The category of number of the Middle English nouns was characterized by the competition of the productive patterns of plurality with non-productive types [13]. In the course of this competition the standard forms of the plural number with the inflection -es gradually replaced other forms.

It should be noted, that in ME there a radical change comes: the expression of number is separated from that of case. So there is a fundamental difference between the OE ending –as and the ME ending – es: while the OE –as expressed number and case simultaneously, ME –es expressed number alone and was not connected with any notion of case.

An important event in the growth of the nominal system of the Old English language was the development of articles.

In the Old English language the noun was often determined by the demonstrative pronoun se:, seo:, þæt, þa: ‘that’, ‘those’ if the object was known or had been mentioned before. In the 13th century the paradigm of the demonstrative pronoun that was reduced to two forms: that ‘that’ and thos ‘those’. The weak (unstressed) form of the demonstrative pronoun the fixed in the function of the definite article.
Middle English that, thos

(demonstrative pronoun)

Old English se:, seo:, thæt

Middle English the

(definite article)

The indefinite article was produced from the Old English numeral an ‘one’. The word an was used in the article-like function in the Old English language, e.g.: an man ‘a man’ (compare with the Russian “Один человек хочет побеседовать с вами”). In the Middle English language the numeral an changed into on according to the phonetic laws. But in the unstressed position instead of the change a> o, the long a was shortened. Later n was regularly dropped before consonants. Thus there appeared two forms separated from the numeral which were used as the indefinite article:

Middle English on ‘one’

Old English an ‘one’

Middle English an, a

(indefinite article)

Knowing the origin of the indefinite article you will understand why it is used only with the form of the singular number of countable nouns. It is a reflection of its historic connection with the numeral an [14].

2.3. Using of the Definite Article and the Indefinite Article

For better or for worse, English is blessed with articles. This causes a considerable amount of confusion for speakers of most of the world's other languages, who seem to get on rather well without them. The good news is that English began dropping the complex case systems and grammatical genders still prevalent in other European languages a very long time ago. Now we are left with just two forms of the indefinite article (a and an) and one form of the definite article (the). Perhaps more than anything it is the transition from being a language with synthetic structure to one which is more analytic that has helped gain English the kind of unrivalled worldwide acceptance it enjoys today.

The truth of the mаtter is thаt definite аnd indefinite аrticles аre not а "Russiаn" problem but а "Russiаn to English" problem. Tаke the following, for exаmple:

У нас хороший, удобный диван. "We hаve а nice, comfortаble couch."

Notice thаt I trаnslаted the sentence using the English indefinite аrticle а.

"We hаve nice, comfortаble couch."

Russiаn émigrés don't feel comfortаble with аrticles in English. Because there аre no definite аnd indefinite аrticles in Russiаn.

Even between British and American usage one finds subtle differences in nuance or emphasis. For example, Americans usually say someone is in the hospital, much as they could be at the bank or in the park. To the British this sounds like there is only one hospital in town or that the American is thinking of one hospital in particular that he or she patronizes. The Brits say an ailing person is in hospital, just as they would say a child is at school or a criminal is in prison. This is because they are thinking more of the primary activities that take place within those institutions rather than the buildings in which they are housed. If, however, you are merely visiting one of these places, you are at the hospital, at the school or at the prison - both British and Americans agree here that what we have in mind is the building itself.

The answer to the question "what do we need articles for?” can’t be too simple. We might have to enumerate quite a few functions articles can be used in. Some of them are common for all the three articles, others are only characteristic of individual function words.

  

 1. The Use of Articles as Determiners

   The invariant function of all the articles (i.e. the function all of them are used in) is that of determination. Any human language has a system of devices used to determine words as parts of speech. In analytical languages the article is the basic noun determiner. In synthetic languages, like Ukrainian and Russian the same function is performed by inflexions.    

     e.g. Read the poem:

   Twas brilling, and the slithy toves 

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

  All mimsy were the borogoves, 

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

2. The Use of Articles as Generalizers

The object denoted by the word is called the "referent”. Referents can be concrete, if something is said about a concrete object or phenomenon, and general, if what we say is true for the whole class of objects.

     e.g. I have a dog at home (a concrete dog).

            The dog is man’s friend (any dog).

In the second sentence the definite article is used as a generalizer. The generalizing function can be performed by both the definite, the indefinite and the zero article. The zero article is used in the plural or with uncountable nouns, for example: