Numeral
The treatment of numerals presents some difficulties, too. The so-called cardinal numerals (one, two) are somewhat different from the so-called ordinal numerals (first, second). Numerals denote either number or place in a series. Numerals are invariable. As far as phrases go, both cardinal and ordinal numerals combine with a following noun (three rooms, third room); occasionally a numeral follows a noun (soldiers three, George the Third). (b) In a sentence, a numeral most usually is an attribute (three rooms, the third room), but it can also be subject, predicative, and object: Three of them came in time; "We Are Seven" (the title of a poem by Wordsworth); I found only four.
22) The article. General notion.
An article is a word that is put next to a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles can have various functions:
a definite article (English the) is used before singular and plural nouns that refer to a particular member of a group. (The cat on the mat is black.)
an indefinite article (English a, an) is used before singular nouns that refer to any member of a group. (A cat is a mammal).
a partitive article indicates an indefinite quantity of a mass noun; there is no partitive article in English, though the words some or any often have that function. a zero article is the absence of an article (e.g. English indefinite plural), used in some languages in contrast with the presence of one. Linguists hypothesize the absence as a zero article based on the X-bar theory.
