Anglais

Determiner: The Word That Comes Before the Adjectives

A determiner goes in front of a noun to say which one or how many. The five types with examples, and the position test that separates it from an adjective.

Determiner

A determiner is a word placed in front of a noun to specify which one, whose, or how many are meant, such as the, this, my or several.

Où les élèves le rencontrent: Grade 4 English; the national curriculum for England places determiner in the Year 4 list of terminology pupils are expected to know and use.

La réponse en bref
A determiner comes in front of a noun to say which one or how many: the, a, this, my, some, three. It sits before any adjectives — the big red bus, never big the red bus — and unlike an adjective it cannot be graded and cannot follow the verb.

Un exemple

the big red bus ✗ big the red bus

The must come first. Adjectives can be shuffled and stacked fairly freely — big red, old red, big old red — but the determiner has one position, at the head of the noun phrase, ahead of everything else describing the noun. If a word can move around among the adjectives, it is an adjective. If it insists on being first, it is a determiner.

Five types, and what each one answers

Determiners are grouped by the question they settle about the noun.

Articles — a, an, the. They answer only whether the noun is a specific one the reader already knows about.
Demonstratives — this, that, these, those. Which one, in terms of near or far.
Possessives — my, your, his, her, its, our, their. Whose.
Quantifiers — some, many, several, few, all, both, each, every, no, enough. How many or how much.
Numbers — one, two, twenty; first, second, third. Exactly how many, or which in an order.

Telling a determiner from an adjective

Some grammar books add a sixth group for question words used in front of nouns — which book, what time, whose bag. They behave like determiners in every respect, so if your textbook lists six rather than five, nothing has gone wrong.

Determiners and adjectives both sit in front of a noun, so the difference has to be found in behaviour rather than in meaning.

Position — the determiner goes before any adjectives. The three tired students, not tired the three students.
Grading — an adjective takes very or -er. Very tired, tireder. Very the and theer are not words.
After the verb — an adjective can move there. The students are tired. A determiner cannot: the students are the is nonsense.
Stacking — adjectives pile up freely. Determiners of the same kind do not: the my book and a this pen are both impossible.

Why this matters more for some students than others

Determiners are also a closed class: the language has a fixed set and no new ones are being made. Adjectives are open, and English gains new ones constantly. You cannot see that difference in a single sentence, but it explains why the determiner list is short enough to learn in an afternoon.

In English a singular countable noun almost always needs a determiner in front of it. I saw cat is wrong; I saw a cat, I saw the cat and I saw my cat are all right, and nothing in the sentence tells you which to choose except what the listener already knows.

Urdu and Punjabi have no articles corresponding to a and the, so this is one of the most persistent sources of error for students who speak them at home, and it survives long after their vocabulary and grammar are otherwise strong. It is not a knowledge problem — the rule takes one sentence to state — it is a habit problem, and it is fixed by correcting the article every single time rather than by re-explaining it.

Questions fréquentes

Is the an adjective or a determiner?

A determiner. Older grammar books classed articles as adjectives and some still do, but the national curriculum for England and current school teaching treat a, an and the as determiners. The behaviour test settles it: the cannot be graded, cannot follow the verb, and must come before any adjective in the phrase.

How many determiners are there in English?

A few dozen, depending on how numbers are counted. The more useful point is that determiners are a closed class, so the whole list can be learned — unlike adjectives, which run into tens of thousands and gain new members every year.

Can a noun phrase have two determiners?

Not two of the same kind: the my book is impossible. Some combinations work because the words belong to different groups — all my books, both these pens, the first three questions. Even then the order is fixed, and swapping the words produces nonsense.

What is the difference between a determiner and a pronoun?

A determiner sits in front of a noun; a pronoun stands in place of one. This book is mine uses this as a determiner. This is mine uses this as a pronoun, because no noun follows it. Several words — this, that, some, many — do both jobs depending on position.

Sources

National curriculum in England: English programmes of study — Department for Education

Dernière mise à jour 21 août 2026