Indefinite article – use of „a‟ and „an‟

Indefinite article – use of „a‟ and „an‟

Article „a‟ is used:

 In singular nouns e.g., a meeting, a message, a class etc
 With words starting with a consonant e.g., a man, a situation, a behaviour etc
 With words beginning with sound of „y‟ or with „o‟ as in one e.g., a young-man, a one-rupee coin

Article „an‟ is used:

 In singular nouns starting with a vowel e.g., an engineer, an officer etc
 With words where first alphabet is not sounded e.g., an honourable person etc

(iv) Demonstratives

These are – „this‟, „that‟, „these‟ and „those‟. Everyone must learn to use them properly in oral and written communication.

(v) Number words

These have two subgroups:
 Cardinal numbers like one, two, three etc
 Ordinal numbers like the order in which things occur - first, second, third etc

(vi) Possessives

 These are words that are used as adjectives e.g., Rita‟s friend, Anita‟s puppy
 We also have possessive pronouns like me, your, his, her, its, our, their etc

(vi) Quantifiers

These are – „some‟, „many‟, „several‟ etc

 Adverbs

These are words that modify verbs, adjectives and even other adverbs. Two types are:
(i) Those that modify verbs e.g.,
 Ruchi drives the car „carefully‟.
 Rohil parked the car „there‟.
 Anjana parked the car „yesterday‟.
(ii) Those that modify adjectives
These are – „very‟, „much‟, „too‟, „enough‟ etc