VILNIAUS PEDAGOGINIS UNIVERSITETAS
FILOLOGIJOS FAKULTETAS
ANGLŲ KALBOS DIDAKTIKOS KATEDRA
Gerda Mazlaveckienė
Valerija Norušaitienė
THE ENGLISH ARTICLE:
DEFINITENESS AND
INDEFINITENESS
Teaching Aid
Vilnius, 2011
UDK 811.111‘367.632(075.8)
Ma724
Leidinys apsvarstytas Vilniaus pedagoginio universiteto Filologijos fakulteto Anglų kalbos katedros posėdyje 2011 gegužės 9 d.
(protokolo Nr. 3), Filologijos fakulteto tarybos posėdyje 2011 m.
gegužės 16 d. (protokolo Nr. 5) ir rekomenduotas spausdinti.
Recenzavo:
dr. Jurga Cibulskienė (Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas)
Birutė Bersėnienė (Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas)
ISBN 978-9955-20-645-3
© Gerda Mazlaveckienė, 2011
© Valerija Norušaitienė, 2011
© Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas, 2011
–2–
CONTENTS
PREFACE.........................................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................5
THE INDEFINITE AND ZERO ARTICLES........................................... 27
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INDEFINITE ARTICLE................... 28
THE ZERO ARTICLE AND ITS FUNCTIONS............................... 34
THE DEFINITE ARTICLE........................................................................ 42
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE DEFINITE ARTICLE........................ 43
FACTORS DETERMINING THE CHOICE OF THE ARTICLE........ 48
PRACTICE SECTION................................................................................ 63
REFERENCES............................................................................................ 111
SOURCES................................................................................................... 112
–3–
PREFACE
This teaching aid is meant, first and foremost, for second-year
bachelor students of English as well as for in-service teachers of
English at the Competence Development Centre of Vilnius Pedagogical University. Other language learners interested in the
English article and its communicative value may also find something of interest in the comprehensive approach towards the subject under discussion.
The reader will revise and refresh the knowledge of the English
article, its functions and factors determining the choice of the article for the intended purpose. The teaching aid also includes the
Practice Section with a number of exercises for practising the use
of articles.
Our teaching aid is the result of team work: the indefinite
and zero articles and part of the exercises were prepared by
G. Mazlaveckienė, the introduction, the definite article, the factors determining the choice of the article and part of the exercises
by V. Norušaitienė.
We express our sincere gratitude to Birutė Bersėnienė, Dr Jurga
Cibulskienė and Jurgita Trapnauskienė who kindly agreed to review the teaching aid and offered sound advice on a number of
issues. We also appreciate the goodwill of Ms Gwyneth Fox, the
Associate Editor of the Macmillan English Dictionary, for permission to include some examples from the Macmillan Dictionary materials as illustrations to our statements.
–4–
INTRODUCTION
One of the most important activities, which is undertaken by a
human being is communication, a process of giving and receiving information involving one’s abilities and capabilities while in
contact with the surrounding people, animals, things and situations. Successful communication is an important pre-condition for achieving all the goals in one’s personal and social life,
which makes it possible for the communicator to choose methods, forms and means best suited for the purpose. From among
such forms of communication as looks, gestures and language,
the latter plays a leading role in both formal and informal teaching/learning a language because ‘Words may kill or heal’, ‘Many
words cut/hurt more than swords’ as the sayings go.
In the teaching/learning process, communication is both the content and the form of the activity, i.e. two questions receive their
answers: What is taught/learnt? and How is it performed? This
book deals with the use of the English article (form) in communicating a certain amount of information (content) to the listener
or reader.
In communicating, any information is looked upon from two
points of view – definite or indefinite. The definite information
seems to be more important because it brings up the process of
communication itself and serves the motive or reason for it on the
part of a communicator or/and listener. Indefinite information
always keeps a certain distance from the partner(s) of commu–5–
nication who usually make a decision whether to include it into
their own ‘definite circle’ or leave it as it is.
Love is a malady without cure (indefinite).
He is so sad. He has lost the love of his life (definite).
It was the only possible cure for their chronic trade deficit (definite).
The English language has established a number of ways to express
the above-mentioned aspects of information. Thus, definiteness
in English is conveyed by means of:
• the demonstrative adjectives or pronouns (this – these, that
– those, such, same),
• the possessive adjectives (my, your, his, her, its, our, their) and
pronouns (mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs),
• the definite article (the), the most frequently used word in the
English language at present.
The use of these forms is determined by their specific historic
and semantic characteristics. Concrete definiteness is expressed
through physical or linguistic indication by demonstrative pronouns and numerals.
This book is new. (Lith. Ši knyga nauja.)
This is a new book. (Lith. Štai/čia nauja knyga.)
I like fruit such as apples, grapes and tangerines. (Lith. Man patinka tokie vaisiai kaip obuoliai, vynuogės ir mandarinai.)
I’ve got two new books here. (Lith. Štai turiu dvi naujas knygas.)
Possessive definiteness is usually expressed by adjectives, pronouns and nouns to introduce the idea of possession, another basic notion.
–6–
My book is very interesting. What about yours/Ann’s/the others’/
the other children’s? (Lith. Mano knyga įdomi.O tavo/Onos/
kitų/kitų vaikų?)
Situational/anaphoric definiteness is revealed through the definite article, a historically newer linguistic unit, whose purpose is
to present information in one or another way related to the partners of communication.
This is a book. The book is yours, isn’t it? (The definite article
is used because of the previous mention of the object). (Lith.
Štai knyga. Ji tavo, tiesa?)
The sun is hot today, isn’t it? (Lith. Saulė kepina šiandien/Na ir
karšta šiandien, ar ne?)
The definite article in the sentences above refers to the experience
common to the partners of communication. It is important to
note that the English article may or may not be translated into
Lithuanian, which is usually determined by its meaning, i.e. if
the situation requires, the noun with the article is replaced by
pronouns (ji(s), tas, tai) or adverbs (čia, ten). It is usually observed when the described object is the centre of communication. However, when attention is paid to the characteristics of
the described object or situation, the Lithuanian language prefers another way of expression – omission of the article counterpart or even the noun itself, retaining the meaning of the noun
group in other ways.
–7–
Table 1. Means of expressing definiteness in the English
language.
Type of Determiner
1. Personal pronouns
2. Demonstratives (this –
these, that – those)
3. Possessive adjectives
4. the
5. Proper names
6. Each, every
7. All
Examples
I told them everything I knew.
This is my best friend’s house.
My house is on the other side of the street.
Mary showed me the car she bought
yesterday.
Julia, Mrs. Brown, Dr. Goldsmith
She tackled each/every issue with great
concern.
All the girls in our group attended the
beauty contest.
Indefiniteness is studied relatively, in contrast to definiteness,
and refers to information presented in the communication act
without special or specific interest, on the part of the partners
of communication. There are two types of indefiniteness, which
have their own ways of expression:
Complete/full indefiniteness is realized through the zero article – or absence of article – to present objects and situations in a
most general way.
Do you like apples or pears?
Like teacher, like pupil.
Love is a malady without cure.
Have you mounted Everest?
When do you usually come to university?
This meaning is conveyed by various types of nouns: concrete,
abstract, common and proper.
–8–
Partial indefiniteness is realized through the Indefinite Article a/an
due to its basic meaning of ‘oneness’. Though the partners of communication may not have anything to do with the information presented,
they will always be aware of the number of the entities mentioned.
We saw a house with a lawn in front of it. (Lith. Pamatėme
namą ir pievelę priešais jį.)
The Indefinite Article attributes the introduced objects to certain
classes only by indicating their names, thus pointing to a/one representative of the class. The Pronoun or Adjective (some, any, no)
which indicates the indefinite number or quality of objects is also
introduced in communication.
There were some (=a few, several, not one) apples on the window sill.
Are there any apples at home? (Lith. Ant palangės buvo
obuolių. Ar namie yra obuolių?) – The possessive adjective
is omitted.
Quantitative adjectives pointing to the quantity of the entities
presented also indicate partial indefiniteness.
Outside there were only a few/several street lights.
It’s a small car that doesn’t use much petrol.
I’ve been to their house many times.
Not very many/only a few companies can afford the high cost of
introducing new technology.
He is an excellent manager, so there is little/not much tension in
the office.
The Lithuanian language always has an equivalent for this type of
adjective (keletas, keli, nedaug, mažai).
–9–
Table 2. Means of expressing indefiniteness in the English
language.
Type of
Comments
Determiner
1. ∅ (zero
‘Bare’ noun
article)
phrases,
understood
existentially
2. A/an
Examples
When do you start school?
Snow is common at this time of
year.
I bought a dog.
I’ve got an idea.
3. Some
Cf. Lith.
There are some books on the table.
Keletas, kai kurie Come, here is some space for you.
(kurios), kažkiek Some of the tables in the restaurant
were already occupied.
4. Any
Cf. Lith.
Any idiot can lose money.
Bet koks/kokia, Are any of the paintings for sale?
bet kuris/kuri;
koks/kokia nors
5. No
No thoughts came to my mind.
No music here, please!
6. Most
Like most people, I try to take a
vacation every year.
It was Sunday and most of the shops
were closed.
Most of the time it’s very quiet
here.
7. Several,
Several people have volunteered to
a few,
go there.
many, few
Several of her colleagues agreed
with her decision.
I could suggest many different
methods, but anyway, here are just
a few.
Very few of the staff come from the
local area.
Do you get many visitors?
8. Indefinite Cf. Lith.
This weird guy came up to me.
this
Kažkoks/
kažkokia
9. One
One day a man came to see me.
– 10 –
With this short general survey of the English article given, it is
reasonable to refer to it as a communicative category. The purpose is to introduce objects and situations in the communicative
act viewed by the members of communication and especially determined by the communicator’s attitude towards the information presented. The sentence The horse was beautiful will cause
misunderstanding on the listener’s part unless s/he has shared
common experience with the speaker. Certainly, the speaker
should have introduced more of the situation.
Last summer I went to the countryside and saw a horse. The horse
was beautiful.
This kind of introduction will make it possible for the partners
of communication to go on with the conversation. Before starting
a closer detailed analysis of the English articles we would like to
remind the reader of a number of linguistic, morphological and
syntactic facts, which will facilitate the study and understanding of this intricate and interesting phenomenon not observed in
Lithuanian.
The Article is used with nouns, pronouns, numerals and adjectives, i.e. with nominal parts of sentence. Nominal parts of sentence are linguistic units which possess the meaning of substantivity and can perform the functions of the Subject, Complement/Predicative, Object, Attribute and Adverbial Modifier in
a sentence.
A man wants to see you. (Subject)
The man on the bench was quite old. (Attribute)
He is a man of importance. (Complement)
– 11 –
I see a man in the yard. (Object, Adverbial Modifier)
It was a she not a he. (Complement)
I don’t like the book. Would you give me another/one other book?
(Object)
One boy fell off his chair and the others laughed. (Subject)
I would do the same if I had a chance. (Object)
Fully substantivized adjectives have acquired all the features/
categories of the Noun, such as number (singular and plural),
case (common and genitive) and syntactic functions (Subject,
Complement, Object, Attribute and Adverbial Modifier). They
may also have their own attribute.
There were a few whites/liberals/natives/Christians/Europeans etc. at the meeting. (Subject)
He is a native of Edinburgh but now lives in London. (Complement)
The natives are getting restless. (Subject)
The natives’ requirements ought to be heard. (Attribute)
Partially substantivized word classes, such as adjectives, participles and numerals refer to nations and other groups of people
or/and objects, which are characterized by certain features typical of the group/class. They always take the definite article.
Are the English different from the Welsh? (Subject)
Do you notice a gap between the rich and the poor in this country? (Adverbial Modifier)
Have all the wounded been taken to hospital? (The Past Participle in the function of the Subject the sentence)
– 12 –
The ten (a mark at school) he got yesterday came as a surprise to
the entire family. (Subject)
I have never got a two (a mark at school). (Object)
Who was the first to get to the line? (Complement)
‘Never’ is an adverb. (Subject)
The Subject is ‘Never’. (Complement)
As the choice and use of the English article is very much determined by the kind of the nouns employed, it is important to revise
noun classifications. As we know, English nouns refer to people,
objects, notions, places, conditions and situation and thus possess a general meaning of Substance (thingness). From a semantic
point of view, nouns are Proper and Common.
Proper nouns, usually written in capital letters, refer to names
of:
people (Ann, Brown, the Gadfly)
countries (Britain, the United Kingdom)
towns and villages (Vilnius, Pošupės, Manchester, New York)
rivers and mountains (the Thames, Rambynas)
time units – epochs, months, days of the week (the Renaissance, June, Sunday)
planets (the Earth, Jupiter)
buildings (Buckingham Palace)
streets and squares (the Main Street, Soho Square)
parts of towns (the City, the Old Town, Waterloo Bridge)
newspapers and magazines (the Times, Time, The Economist)
institutions and organizations (the United Nations, Vilnius/
Oxford University), etc.
– 13 –
Common nouns refer to living and non-living beings, objects,
conditions, notions and situations without giving them a particular name but referring them to a certain class:
a man (cf. He may be Jonas, John or Michael.)
a river (cf. the Thames, the Neris, the Vistula)
a cat (cf. Pussycat, Tomcat)
honesty, interest, flowers, dictation, government, etc.
Countable, uncountable and collective nouns represent the category of number, fully or partially.
Countable nouns usually have both forms of number – singular
and plural.
a man – men, a river – rivers, a phenomenon – phenomena, a
Brown – Browns, etc.
How many students are there in your group?
Uncountable nouns refer to entities that cannot be counted
because of their specific characteristics – mass and an abstract
meaning. Thus, we can speak about material nouns (bread, milk,
coffee, etc.) and abstract nouns (honesty, socialism, progress,
etc.). However, one should note a certain relationship between
countable and uncountable noun characteristics, i.e. uncountable nouns may become countable in situations when the abstract/general meaning is narrowed to a particular, specific,
concrete meaning.
Beauty lies in lover’s eyes. (Lith. Grožis) (The noun is abstract.
It introduces a notion in a general sense.)
She was a great beauty in her time. (The abstract noun has
changed its status, it has become countable as it refers to a
– 14 –
person to describe a certain feature of her appearance. (Lith.
gražuolė)
The same may be observed among material/mass nouns.
Would you like coffee or tea? (uncountable nouns in a general
sense) – I’d like a coffee, please. (=a cup of coffee, a portion is
indicated)
A similar transformation is observed among countable nouns.
There is a school in our village. (The countable noun school refers to a place for children to learn in (Lith. mokykla)
The whole school assembled in the hall. (The noun school refers to all the students and the staff of the school. (Lith.Visa
mokykla/Visi mokyklos mokiniai ir darbuotojai)
Have you got acquainted with the Impressionist school of painting? (The school here refers to a group of writers, artists, etc.,
whose work or ideas are similar (Lith. mokykla, kryptis)
The following example is somewhat different, the noun school becoming uncountable.
The kids will be at school until 3.00 today. (The reference here is
made to the activity typical of the building (or people) itself.
(Lith. mokykloje, mokysis)
The same is true of other countable nouns which possess similar characteristics, such as university (study), hospital (illnesses),
prison (isolation), table (eating), etc.
– 15 –
Collective nouns involve names of living (animate) and non-living (inanimate) beings as a group united by a certain feature, such
as family or social relationship, age: family, police, company, government, jury, youth, committee, etc.
The animate nouns of this group, sometimes also called nouns
of multitude, may be countable or uncountable depending upon
the idea they are employed to express, i.e. if the noun refers to the
group as a unit it is countable.
The government has announced plans to raise the minimum
wage next year.
Is the Watson family going to be there?
The nouns may take a plural form as well.
Single-parent families are increasingly common nowadays.
Smaller plcs are worried about the effect of the limited new legislation. (public limited companies in the UK that have shares
that ordinary people can buy)
A family with two children live next door.
In the latter example a singular collective noun is used to indicate
the members of the group, which is reflected in the form of the
verb live (or has and is in the other examples above). This use of
the predicate verb is called semantic concord, whose purpose is to
correctly present the number of the entities in the Subject.
Inanimate collective nouns involve names of things and notions
taken as a group: money, information, politics, spectacles, draughts,
contents, savings, etc. They fall into three subgroups:
– 16 –
• used only in the singular (Lat. Singularia tantum) with a singular verb form: news, information, knowledge, furniture, poetry, progress, advice, ethics, phonetics, etc.
What’s the news?
Her advice was (to) wait a few months.
In situations when a single instance of something is noted, the
nouns are preceded by a piece/article of: a piece of work/research/
nonsense/music/information/advice/news, articles of clothing, etc.
•used only in the plural (Lat. Pluralia tantum) followed by a
plural verb form: proceedings, pyjamas, savings, scales, etc.
There were clothes scattered about the room.
• used both with the singular and/or plural verb forms due to
the semantic peculiarities of the nouns.
Wait a minute, please.
Who will keep the minutes (=write them) today?
Shall we hear the minutes of the last meeting?
A minute (sg.) – minutes (pl.) = spaces of time (Lith. minutė –
minutės)
Minutes (pl.) is an official written record of what is discussed or
decided at a formal meeting. (Lith. protokolas)
People were running everywhere.
They are a proud, dignified people.
– 17 –
Over thousands of years, peoples from central Asia have come to
settle here.
People (pl.) is plural of ‘person’. (Lith. žmonės)
A people (sg.) (=a nationality) – peoples (pl.) (Lith. tauta – tautos)
Thus, the above-mentioned types of nouns in their various forms
and meanings greatly determine the correct choice and use of the
English article in any sphere of verbal communication.
Animate and inanimate nouns refer to living and non-living beings respectively. These types of nouns are part of the above-mentioned classifications – Proper/Common and Countable-Uncountable-Collective, e.g. names of people and animals are usually animate nouns – a girl, Ann, a tiger, while names of things,
notions and situations are inanimate – a book, honesty, conversation, summer. However, the English language allows personification, a process of attaching qualities typical of living beings to
things that are in a close relationship to the speaker individually
or socially/traditionally, which is to reflect a certain socio-cultural mentality of the nation. Thus, the nouns sun and moon are inanimate common and countable when they denote space objects.
How many moons has Jupiter got?
Do you happen to know the number of stars in space?
How many suns are there in space?
However, when sun or moon become the objects of our everyday
life, they become animate and may be replaced by the personal
pronouns he and she respectively.
– 18 –
It is pleasant to watch the sun in his chariot of gold and the moon
in her chariot of pearl.
At first the earth was large, but every moment she grew smaller.
(Kobrina 2006:191)
The feminine gender nouns are not only names of planets but also
names of vessels (ships, boats, etc.), vehicles (car, carriage, etc.)
and countries (England, Lithuania, etc.).
The new ice-breaker has started on her maiden voyage. She is a
fine car.
England is proud of her poets. (Kobrina 2006:192)
It is of interest to note that the Lithuanian language attaches a
different gender to the below-mentioned nouns.
The Moon – ‘mėnulis’ is a he. (masculine gender)
A ship – ‘laivas’ is a he.
A car – ‘automobilis’ is a he.
The Sun – ‘saulė’ is a she. (feminine gender)
Vice versa cases are also observed when objects receive the names
of their authors.
A mackintosh is a raincoat called after its author.
A Rembrandt is a picture, whose author is Rembrandt.
Thus, the semantics (meaning) of nouns should not be overlooked
while choosing the proper article to be used.
– 19 –
From the structural point of view, nouns are divided into simple and complex. Simple nouns consist of one independent root
morpheme, which has its own lexical meaning (direct reference
to the entity it stands for): a boy, a book, John, love, etc. Complex
nouns consist of a few elements joined in a number of ways and
are grouped into the following subclasses depending on the manner of word building.
•derivatives, nouns which consist of a root morpheme preceded or followed by an affix (prefix or suffix) adding another
meaning to the basic notion.
English nouns derived by means of prefixes acquire an opposite
meaning through dis-, in-, mis-, re-, and under-:
Discount – a reduction in the price of something (Lith. nuolaida)
Inconvenience – an annoying problem or situation (Lith. nepatogumas)
Reunion – a case of meeting again after a long time (Lith. seniai nesimačiusiųjų susitikimas)
Underwear (underclothes) – clothing that you wear next to
your skin under your clothes (Lith. apatiniai drabužiai)
English nouns derived by suffixation acquire two types of meaning: concrete, that of a living agent or doer, through the suffixes:
-ian: Parisian, republican
-ant/ent: assistant, student
-ee: employee, referee
-ess: poetess, lioness
-er: teacher, writer
-ician: musician, politician
– 20 –
-ine: heroine
-or: doctor, actor
The other meaning of the suffix is abstract, i.e. it points to names
of processes, values, states, qualities and situations through the
following suffixes (Kobrina: 190):
-age: bondage, wreckage
-al: refusal, betrayal
-ancy/-ency: vacancy, valency
-dom: freedom, boredom
-hood: childhood, brotherhood
-ing: meaning, writing
-ation/tion/sion: dictation, tension
-ism: socialism, skepticism
-ment: government, development
-ness: shortness, weakness
-shop: friendship, scholarship
-ty: cruelty, sanity
-th: warmth, depth
-y: difficulty, honesty
•A specific form of derivation is conversion, building a new
noun from another part of speech or wordclass without
changing its form but enabling it to possess the categories of
the noun. Converted nouns come from verbs, adjectives or
adverbs.
We painted the walls a creamy white.
What about the relations between blacks and whites in your community?
We would welcome your comments on our work.
– 21 –
The company has already had its share of ups and downs.
• Compound nouns consist of two or more independent root
morphemes producing a complex notion.
a postman (a man who delivers letters and newspapers)
a blackbird (a kind of bird common in Europe and North
America)
a pickpocket (someone who steals money from people’s pockets), etc.
• Composite nouns consist of a few morphemes, which make a
phrase.
an exchange rate, a sales report, a training course, stock market,
etc.
•A somewhat opposite case of derivation is shortening, using only one syllable of a word instead of the whole, all the
morphological and syntactic characteristics of the basic form
retained.
Zoo comes from zoological gardens,
Flue from influenza,
Ad and advert from advertisement, etc. (Stockwell et al.
2002:10)
The short forms are usually preferable in informal communication.
– 22 –
Another aspect of nominal units related to a correct choice of the
article is their function in a sentence: the Subject, the Complement/Predicative, the Object, the Attribute, the Adverbial Modifier or the Independent Element (Parenthesis, Direct Address,
Interjection).
The Subject is a part of sentence, which introduces the doer (performer of the action and usually precedes the Predicate. It always
answers the questions ‘Who....?’ for animate nouns and ‘What...?’
for inanimate.
The children in the yard are very quiet today.
The book you gave me is very interesting.
The Complement/Predicative is a notional part of the Compound Nominal Predicate, which gives substantial information
about the Subject. It always follows a link verb whose function
is to introduce the verbal categories of number, person, tense, aspect or mood.
Ms Brown is our/a new teacher.
Ben is/was the best friend I have ever had.
The Object is a part of sentence, whose function is to complete
the meaning of a transitive verb used as Predicate, directly or indirectly.
Would you give Ann (indirect O.) an English book? (direct O.)
Send the book (direct O.) to your sister (indirect O.), will you?
– 23 –
The Attribute is a part of sentence which modifies a nominal element, usually a noun, giving it additional characteristics, such as
quality, belonging, etc.
Have you read ‘A Day’s Wait’ by E. Hemingway?
The windows of the classroom have never been so clean.
The Adverbial Modifier is a part of sentence, which adds special,
temporal and other characteristics the sentence is related to.
Shall we spend the weekend at a lake or at the seaside?
What do you have in the morning: tea or coffee?
Ben looked at his father with interest.
Nominal units may also be used as a variety of the Adverbial
Modifier, which grammars usually call the Independent Element. This use of nominal phrases may be considered to be part
of a modifier because it introduces the speaker’s attitude towards
the information in the sentence.
In my opinion, she can do better.
To tell the truth, the weather is too old for this time of the year.
One more characteristic of a noun or its substitute in a nominal
phrase that affects the use of the article is its ability to take modifiers, words which disclose its inner and outer features. Thus, an
attributive phrase is formed, whose purpose is to introduce more
information valid or important at the time and place of communication. The modifiers specifying their headword, a nominal
element, are called attributes, whose function is to expand the
meaning of the headword to the extent the speaker thinks nec– 24 –
essary. Depending upon the character (and meaning) of the attributes, they are of two types: descriptive and limiting.
Descriptive/non-defining attributes disclose the inner properties of the headword such as quality, quantity, size, colour, age,
composition, etc. They may precede or/and follow the headword,
being simple or/and phrasal.
Beware of talking to him! He has become a man of importance.
(= an important man)
To a large degree it is parents who ought/should take the blame.
The seeds need a minimum temperature of about 15°C to germinate.
A group of her friends were waiting for her inside.
Their first child is a girl of three.
Limiting/defining attributes usually reveal the outer relations
of the headword with reference to other people, objects, conditions and situations through some kind or way of belonging to
them as well as to the spatial factors of time and place, which is
determined by the speaker’s intention.
The windows of the classroom were closed because of the strong
wind. (The postpositive attribute of the classroom indicates
that the headword the windows belongs to the classroom
alongside with such parts as the walls, ceiling or floor. This
part-and-whole relationship is quite common in English attributive phrases.)
The young people of today are quite different from their peers of
the 20th century. (time relationship)
– 25 –
Do you happen to know the fastest-growing economies in the
Asia-Pacific region?
The latter sentence has a postpositive phrasal attribute (in the
Asia-Pacific region), which may be looked upon not only as an attribute but also as an adverbial modifier of place. This is a dubious (not completely good or proper) case in the sentence analysis,
usually related to and determined by the position of the phrase in
the sentence. Thus, a final position, as given in the above sentence,
favours the adverbial. However, the noun phrase in the sentence
the fastest-growing economies in the Asia-Pacific region are those of
Singapore, China, etc. is an attribute, part of the subject of the sentence, characterizing the headword economies from the point of
view of its belonging to a certain place of the world. The meaning
of belonging is mostly expressed by means of the preposition of,
with or other prepositions (in, at, etc.) adding more emphasis not
only on belonging but also on place, companionship, etc.
To sum up, the communicative background is of paramount importance in choosing the proper article.
– 26 –
THE INDEFINITE AND ZERO ARTICLES
The indefinite (a/an) and zero (Ø) articles indicate that the noun
or nominal phrase they determine is not yet a particular one or
identifiable to the listener. It may be something that the speaker
is mentioning for the first time, or its precise identity may be irrelevant or hypothetical, or the speaker may be making a general
statement about any such thing. English uses either a or an (depending on the initial sound of the next word) as its indefinite
article to express partial indefiniteness or a zero article to express
full indefiniteness.
She had a house so large that an elephant would get lost without
a map.
Visitors walked in mud.
Indefinite articles typically arise from the numeral one. For example, the indefinite articles in the Romance languages, e.g. un, una,
une, derive from the Latin numeral unus. The English indefinite
article an is derived from the same root as the numeral one. An
was originally an unstressed form of the number ān ‘one’. The -n
came to be dropped before consonants, giving rise to the shortened form a. The existence of both forms has led to many cases
of juncture loss, e.g. transforming the original a napron or a nox
into the modern an apron and an ox. In addition to serving as an
article, a and an are also used as synonyms for the number one, as
in make a wish, a hundred.
– 27 –
A or an? The choice of a or an is determined by phonetic rules
rather than by spelling convention. An is employed in speech to
remove the awkward glottal stop that is otherwise required between a and a following word. For example, an X-ray is less awkward to pronounce than a X-ray.
The form an is always prescribed before words beginning with a
vowel, e.g. an apple, an orange, an idea, etc., a silent h, such as an
hour, an heir, etc.
On the other hand, some words starting with vowels may have a
preceding a because they are pronounced as if beginning with an
initial consonant, e.g. a ewe, a university, a user, etc. A one-armed
bandit also has a preceding a because it is pronounced with an
initial consonant sound.
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INDEFINITE ARTICLE
The indefinite article has four main functions: nominating, generic, aspective and numeric.
When used in the nominating function, the indefinite article is
used to denote what kind of object (a thing, a person or a notion)
the speaker has to do with. In this case, the indefinite article is
used with countable nouns, both concrete and abstract, in their
singular.
Tom said he was an employee at a fast food restaurant.
Why is it a girl that has to be so silly to catch a husband?
He had met a young woman at a party, named May Macy, a
moving-picture actress.
– 28 –
He gave a mobile phone as a present for my birthday.
A boy walked into the kitchen.
The indefinite article used with countable singular nouns serves
just to name an object, i.e. to attribute it to a certain class of objects (hence the term classifying is used synonymously to nominating by Alexander, Kobrina and other grammarians). The noun
with the indefinite article usually introduces new information in
the sentence and is, therefore, the centre of communication.
The context may also determine the use of the article. In such a
case attention should be drawn to the attributes which modify
the noun. If a countable noun is modified by a descriptive (nondefining) attribute, the usual case is to use the indefinite article
(though it is not a strict rule). This kind of attribute describes an
object (or a group of objects), or it may provide some additional
information about it (or narrows the class to which it belongs).
She was reading a story.
She was reading an interesting story.
She was reading an interesting detective story.
In the provided examples, an interesting story belongs to a narrower class than a story, and an interesting detective story belongs
to a narrower class than an interesting story.
In its generic function the indefinite article implies that the object denoted by the noun is a representative of a class, and therefore, what is said about the thing, object, animal, person or notion refers to any object of the same kind.
– 29 –
A dog is a domestic animal.
A plumber is a person who repairs water pipes.
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers.
The generalizing meaning remains if we turn the nouns in the
above-given sentences into the plural.
Dogs are domestic animals.
Plumbers are people who repair pipes.
Buses are road vehicles designed to carry passengers.
The indefinite article in its generic function is often found in
proverbs and sentences expressing general truths.
A burnt child dreads the fire.
A friend in need is a friend indeed.
When the indefinite article is used in the numeric function it
implies the idea of oneness and is used with singular countable
nouns, which:
• denote measurement: a thousand, a hundred, a minute, a moment, a pound, a kilo, etc. In this case the article can be used
interchangeably with the numeral one (one thousand, one hundred, one minute, one moment, one pound, one kilo, etc.);
• denote measurement in relation to other units: five pounds a
kilo, a pound a meter, twice a day, etc. In this case the article
can be used interchangeably with per (five pounds per kilo, a
pound per meter, twice per day, etc.);
– 30 –
•are used after the negative particle not: not a word, not a
thought, not a wink;
• appear in noun phrases with an ordinal numeral as a premodifier. In this case the article suggests the idea of one more,
additional, another.
Encouraged by her smile the boy took a second helping of the apple-pie.
That was a third time she trod on my toe under the table and
smiled.
•indicate a change in the meaning of uncountable material
nouns into a portion of/a glass of/a cup of, etc.
We sat down at the table and Simon ordered two beers for us and
a coke and an ice for Kit.
‘A salad, please,’ she said in a weary voice.
• are used in certain prepositional phrases indicating oneness:
one at a time, at a glance, etc.
The indefinite article is used in its aspective function with uncountable abstract nouns modified by descriptive attributes,
which serve to highlight a special aspect of the notion denoted
by the noun.
He scanned her face: it expressed a dramatic eagerness.
A chilly emptiness in the water reflected the terrible emptiness
in his soul.
– 31 –
If an abstract noun is modified by the adjectives certain and peculiar, the indefinite article is obligatory.
There is a peculiar tension about her and yet her face doesn’t
show it.
Of course, he had to admit that he had a certain shrewdness, but
he was not nearly so clever as he thought himself.
Occasionally, the descriptive attributes certain and peculiar are
implied, and thus the indefinite article should be used.
She knew now why a softness had crept into the air; the sea was
near.
I was aware now of a sickness.
There was a bitterness in her voice.
The nouns denoting feelings, like pity, shame, disgrace, pleasure,
comfort, relief, disappointment, etc., if used as complements of the
main clause introduced by the formal it or exclamatory sentences
after what and such, are always used with the indefinite article.
It’s a pity you don’t ride or shoot, you must miss a lot.
What a shame you didn’t write down her address!
Such a disgrace!
Sometimes uncountable abstract nouns, even being modified by
attributes, are used without any article. This can be explained by
the nature of the attribute, the nature of the noun and its syntactic function.
– 32 –
Not all attributes bring out a special notion of the noun they
modify. In this case the noun takes the zero article. The attributes
may qualify the noun in terms of:
degree or extent: huge, tremendous, immense, great, major, perfect, sheer, utter, absolute, infinite, endless, complete, etc.
time: ancient, modern, daily, eternal, contemporary, further, impending, medieval, etc.
nationality: English, French, Lithuanian, etc.
geography: London, Paris, world, etc.
authenticity or reliability: real, genuine, authentic, symbolic,
true, solid, dubious, etc.
social characteristics: racial, religious, bourgeois, capitalist, etc.
various genres or trends of art: dramatic, theatrical, romantic,
detective, etc.
man’s spiritual and social life: social, public, political, intellectual, spiritual, moral, mental, immoral, humane, personal, etc.
Contemporary art can sometimes seem at odds with a public that
does not feel that art and its institutions share its values.
He has always shown genuine sympathy for poor people.
When I heard the news I felt perfect relief.
Ancient jealousy invaded her heart.
He had sufficient ability to carry out any complicated task.
Lithuanian hospitality is sincere and bottomless.
Some abstract nouns are never used with the indefinite article. They
are mostly nouns of verbal character (admiration, advice, assistance, approval, concern, information, guidance, permission, progress, trade, work,
control, recognition, research, etc.) and some others (change, weather, nature, fun, health, luck, money, news, etc.).
– 33 –
If you want solid information about people in the theatre or films
the place to go for it in New York is the Players or Gramercy
Park.
I thought she was going to be generous after all, wish me good luck
and give me encouragement.
What nasty weather we are having today!
Some people say that no news is good news.
‘Oh, but we haven’t been as slow as all that,’ he said. ‘Definite
progress has been made.’
The indefinite article is usually omitted if an abstract noun modified by a descriptive attribute is used as the complement of the
sentence or in a prepositional phrase.
It was gallant courage, and it had stood her in such stead during
her mother’s long illness.
‘It was righteous punishment,’ he exclaimed.
She was a woman of wonderful generosity and would give away
everything she possessed.
He shouted at them in helpless rage.
THE ZERO ARTICLE AND ITS FUNCTIONS
The zero article (Ø) is used with plural countable nouns and uncountable nouns in a general sense. Its use is determined by similar rules that are applied to the use of the indefinite article: it
serves to name an object (objects) and notion(s) or attribute them
to a certain class. In this case it acquires its nominating function.
– 34 –
Armies of customs-officials, port-authorities and others came
on board.
He could hear trains passing his home.
Seredžius is a very old and historic village, where archaeological
excavations many years ago discovered graves from the 3rd and
4th centuries A.D. 
Good health and happiness are more important than wealth and
power.
He was missing just one thing: peace of mind.
The zero article is used in its generic function with the noun man
(Lith. žmogus) and its derivative woman, when reference is made
to a human being.
‘Man is helpless in this case,’ he said shrugging his shoulders.
(The) Woman rarely loses heart in the face of financial or other
straits.
Note: the noun woman can be used with the zero or the definite
article in its generic sense.
There are certain groups of nouns which are always used with the
zero article in its nominating function:
Proper nouns denoting names of persons: Thomas French was one of the greatest explorers in history.
The name of a person may be modified by the apposition: an abbreviation like Mrs, Mr, Miss, Dr, etc., a noun denoting a title,
– 35 –
a rank or an occupation, and a noun denoting a member of the
family.
Mrs Morel was alone, but she was used to it.
His companion, Mr Shelby, had the appearance of a gentleman.
Dr Watson is one of the main characters of Sir A. C. Doyle’s stories about Sherlock Holmes.
Queen Victoria was married to a German prince, Prince Albert.
She was a native and essential cook, as much as Aunt Chloe.
Occasionally names of persons take the indefinite article in its aspective function, if they are modified by a descriptive attribute.
The dinner was served by a silent Mrs. Keats.
I saw an infuriated Jeniffer, who started shouting at me the first
moment I opened the door.
However, no article is used if a personal name is preceded by the
adjectives young, old, dear, poor, little, tiny, honest, etc. to denote the
speaker’s emotions.
When young Rockwell entered the library, the old man looked at
him with a kindly grimness.
Old Anthony met us at the station.
Little Lynette wanted to play with the cat and I left her in the
garden.
The indefinite article occurs if a personal name refers to a single
member of a family,
– 36 –
‘The boy is a Benbow!’ he replied hotly.
I have always wondered if Arthur was really a Burton.
or the person is unknown to the participants of communication.
In this case the Proper name is modified by the adjective certain.
Last night I found a gentleman waiting to see me when I returned
home – a certain George Reed.
‘A Mr. Drake phoned in the morning, but he didn’t leave any
message,’ Lydia said.
Personal names turn into common nouns when they denote
things or objects associated with the names of certain persons or
their typical features. The articles in this case are used in accordance with general rules for common nouns.
Every morning he drove out in a rickety old Ford. (a car)
Has the museum got a Goya? (a picture)
There was a rack of books and among them he saw a Brontë.
(a book)
His face always reminded Michael of a Lincoln grown old.
(a president)
The definite article is used if reference is made to the whole family,
One June evening I went to dine with the McDonalds.
The Granges were the only people I knew in the town.
or the noun is modified by a limiting attribute.
– 37 –
It was the Jane I had known before, perfectly simple, homely and
unaffected.
She was not the Mary of our youth.
‘The late Mr. Jones was a very nice person,’ he said in a low
voice.
Proper nouns denoting geographical names in a general sense:
names of continents: Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, etc.
names of countries, counties, provinces, states: France, Italy,
Visconsin, Devonshire, etc.
names of cities, towns, villages: London, New York, Stratfordon-Avon, etc.
names of mountain peaks and single islands: Snowdon, Mount
Everest, Java, Jersey, etc.
names of lakes: Lake Michigan, Silver Lake, etc.
names of waterfalls: Niagara Falls, Victoria Falls, etc.
names of bays, peninsulas and capes: Hudson Bay, Labrador,
Cape Horn, etc.
Geographic names may take the indefinite article in its aspective function if the noun is modified by a descriptive attribute.
It was a different Paris, unknown to him.
It was a new Russia that he found on his return.
If a limiting attribute is used, the noun takes the definite article.
Did he quite understand the England of today?
– 38 –
I had, indeed, a mind to see the City of Peking, which I had heard
so much of.
Other proper nouns, occurring in a general sense and taking the
zero article, include:
names of streets, squares, parks: Broadway, Fleet Street, Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, etc.
names of airports and railway stations: London Airport, Waterloo Station, etc.
names of universities and colleges: Oxford Universtity, Harvard University, etc., but the University of Glasgow.
names of magazines and journals: National Geographic, Language, etc.
names of months and days of the week: Sunday, Tuesday, April,
October, etc.
names of buildings and bridges: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Bridge, Coliseum, etc.
Some semantic groups of nouns, such as names of seasons1, parts
of the day, meals and diseases, tend to take the zero article in its
nominating function.
(The) winter came and with it snowstorms and severe frosts.
It was not summer yet, but the sea was already warm.
The sun set behind the hills and night came.
It was dusk, but the men were still at sea.
Dinner that evening was not a success.
Names of seasons are mostly used with the zero article, though occasionally the definite article may be found.
1
– 39 –
At breakfast next morning Christine behaved as though the
whole episode were forgotten.
Flu! How some people always wait for a holiday to come down
with flu!
If these nouns are modified by descriptive attributes2, they are
used with the indefinite article in its aspective function.
It was a warm summer and the lodging houses were full in Elsom.
He told me how the sun set there on a spring afternoon.
It was a frosty night.
Sometimes they were asked to parties on Sunday, dinner at midday or a cold, sumptuous supper.
Hope is a good breakfast, but a bad supper.
The nouns take the definite article if they are modified by a limiting attribute or appear in a definite context or situation.
It was the autumn of 1942, and most men in London were in
military uniforms.
The sea looked like slate, cold still from the long winter.
The morning of his departure was raw and he was wearing a
greatcoat.
The rain had stopped and the night was starry.
If the names of seasons and parts of the day are modified by adjective late,
early, broad, high and every, the zero article is used, as they only indicate a
more precise time.
By late afternoon the guests began to arrive for the official birthday party.
It was early spring.
2
– 40 –
During the awkward lunch yesterday Jarvis Fortescue was grave
and abstracted.
After the flu she got dejected.
Sometimes, the definite article in its generic function is used with
the mentioned nouns.
He spent the morning working at his novel and the afternoon
walking in the fields.
The nouns school, university, college, hospital, prison, jail, bed, table,
church and sometimes market usually take no article when they
denote activities associated with these places. However, when
these nouns denote a building or an object, they are used with the
indefinite or definite article in accordance with general rules for
countable nouns.
‘Activity’
Building, object
‘You’ve been to college and you’re a The college was a stately six-storied
decent boy,’ said old Anthony.
building.
About a month after his release I think of Chicago now and I see a
from prison he was sitting outside dark, grey city, all stone – it is like
the bar looking vacantly down the a prison.
street.
Mr. Jones was suffering from an ‘I want a room with a bed,’ he said.
attack of malaria; he was in bed and
unable to move.
– 41 –
THE DEFINITE ARTICLE
As we know, one of the main notions in life is definiteness because everything has a form, content and functions – certain
preconditions to one’s existence. From all the ways and means of
expressing the notion, the English language has chosen the definite article for the purpose as the most economical and universal
element of verbal communication. Modern English has a history
of over 1500 years, about 500 years for the Old English, Middle
English and Modern English periods. At the beginning of the
time, the 5th century AD, when German tribes conquered England, definiteness was expressed by the demonstrative pronouns
of the masculine, feminine and neuter genders: sē, sēō, Өæt (tas,
ta, tai) for the same gender nouns.
Sē man wæs bācere. (That/the man was a baker)
Sēo wīfman wæs spinnestre.( That/the woman was a spinner.
Modern English has ‘a spinster’!)
…þæt wē ðā on ðæt 3eðīode wenden... (Mod.E. ...that we
them (those books) into that language should translate…)
The same manner of expressing definiteness is observed in Modern German, a ‘cousin’ to Modern English. The pronouns were
declined together with the nouns they modified in Old and Middle English till the 13th century, when the nouns lost their case
endings keeping only the common and genitive case forms. The
demonstrative pronouns underwent certain changes as well: the
masculine pronoun sē, whose case forms were þæs, þæm, þone, þy
– 42 –
acquired a new form þē/thē [Өe:] in the 2nd half of the Middle
English period on analogy with the majority of the forms, the
diagraph th introduced in the spelling form for the sound Ө. In
the 15th century with the complete loss of the cases, the demonstrative th remained alone to indicate general or abstract definiteness, the concrete one going to the neuter demonstrative pronoun
that. The pronunciation has also changed: the vowel was shortened due to the unstressed position the new-born article had acquired, in the stressed position when used as a quotation. The is
pronounced [ði:] in the stressed position according to the general
sound changes in the history of the Modern English language.
The above presented short historic overview of the definite article
will facilitate the understanding of the general meaning of the
article for the only purpose – to directly or indirectly introduce
definite entities in the act of communication.
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE DEFINITE ARTICLE
The definite article has two functions: specifying/particularizing/individualizing (different grammars give different terms) and
generic.
In the specifying function the definite article is used with all
kinds of nouns: common and proper, countable and uncountable,
animate and inanimate. The noun in this case is always definite
with reference to both the speaker and the situation the communication is held in. The definiteness of the noun is determined by
two factors: linguistic and non-linguistic. Linguistic definiteness
is realized through additional linguistic units – sentences preceding the actual use of the definite article and limiting attributes,
members of the same sentences or phrase.
– 43 –
I saw a little dog in the yard. The dog was white and black. (The
definite article in the dog is supported by and based on a dog in
the preceding sentence)
You are going on holiday at the end of this month, aren’t you?
(The definite article is used in its specifying function with
the headword end because of the following limiting attribute
which denotes a part-and-whole relationship)
He was wearing the same shirt (that/as) he had had on the day
before. (the limiting attributes same and the following clause
point to a certain limitation (definiteness, which characterizes the headword shirt)
Non-linguistic or situational definiteness is observed when the
headword of the definite article is known to the partners of communication through their common experience gained earlier or
shared at the time and place of communication. The noun may
stand alone or have both descriptive or/and limiting attributes if
need be.
Would you close the window, please? (The sentence is valid only
if the speaker and the listener are in the same room with one
window)
The sun has been so hot this summer that fresh water has become
very expensive. (The definite article refers to the sun whose
light and warmth are enjoyed by our planet Earth)
Do you think he could reach for the stars in the sky? (It has both
linguistic and non-linguistic definiteness, the stars in the sky
and the sky respectively)
In the generic function, the definite article is used with singular and plural, common and proper, countable and uncountable,
– 44 –
animate or inanimate nouns to introduce the image of the class
the noun presents, a picture or idea of something that possesses
peculiar features. The definite article has this function when used
with:
Names of groups of people, which refer to nationalities or social
and personal relationships:
The British and the Americans have been allies for a long time. (The
article is used with partially- (British) and fully- (Americans) substantivized adjectives in the function of the subject of the sentence to refer to people who come from the United Kingdom and
the United States respectively)
The police are people who work for an organization that tries to catch
criminals and checks that people obey the law.
In my opinion, the Browns may be trusted: they have never let us
down, so far. (All the members of the family)
The Conservatives (=the Conservative Party) usually support rightwing ideas and policies. However, in the present situation they should
have been more flexible and diplomatic.
The teacher ought to give him/herself to pupils without expecting an
immediate award. (The profession should be based on vocation)
Collective nouns, such as the peasantry, the aristocracy, the clergy,
the public, etc., names of animals, plants and things, which also
present certain images of the classes:
The rose is said to be the queen of flowers, but my favourite is the
forget-me-not.
The cobra is dangerous. (a certain class of snakes as distinct
from other classes, such as the grass snake)
– 45 –
The computer is a machine that stores programmes and information in electronic form and can be used for a variety of processes,
such as writing, calculating, and communicating on the internet.
Life would be quieter without the telephone. (a certain type of
communication, not the radio)
Geographical names:
Names of the countries, towns and provinces which are related to their composition or nature: The Crimea, (the) Congo, the
Caucasus, the Hague, the Middle East, the Netherlands, the Rivera, the Ruhr, the Senegal, the Tyrol, the Transvaal, the United
Kingdom, the United States, the Argentine (but Argentina).
There is a tendency to use some names of countries or towns
without the article in this function, taking them as usual proper
nouns in a general sense: (the) Sudan, (the) Yemen.
Names of geographical areas: The Arctic, the Equator, the
North Pole, the East/West South/North.
Names of oceans/seas/rivers: The Pacific/Indian (Ocean), the
Caspian (sea), the Nile, the Suez canal, etc.
Names of mountain ranges and groups of islands: the Alps, the
Urals, the Himalayas, the Andes, etc.; the Azores, the Bahamas,
the Hebrides, etc.
Names of deserts: the Gobi, the Kalahari, the Sahara (Desert),
etc.
Names of buildings and locations: The Golden Gate Bridge,
The Odeon (cinema), the London hospital, the Hilton (hotel), the
Cafe Royal, the Coliseum (theatre), the British Museum, etc.
Names of newspapers: the Times, the Independent, etc.
– 46 –
Graphically, the functions of the definite article may be presented
in this way:
back reference
signifying (for
linguistic
limiting attributes
definiteness)
non-linguistic/situational –
the
common experience
generic (for the
groups of people, mountains, islands, etc.
image of)
jobs
objects, plants, animals
FACTORS DETERMINING THE CHOICE OF THE ARTICLE
Successful communication is always based on positive and relevant relationships established
between/among the partners and situations of the communication process, on the other hand, as
well as the lexical/semantic and syntactic interaction between linguistic units in expressing the
speaker’s intention, or the other.
The choice of the English article is to a great extent determined by both the above-mentioned
aspects, which makes it possible to distinguish between two types of determination or influence:
situational determination and semantic-syntactic characteristics of the headword (noun) and its
modifiers.
The situational determination in choosing articles always depends on the partners of
communication and the local or temporal characteristics of the events described.
1. If the information presented is general or indefinite, i.e. has no specific reference to the
members of communication, the indefinite article is used with singular nouns and its substitutes –
fully substantivized adjectives, numerals, pronouns and participles used in a general sense.
I’d like an apple/a glass of water, please. – Here you are.
Is he an Italian or a Frenchman?
He has got a ten today!
Indefiniteness is also realized through plural, uncountable and proper nouns used in a general
sense, which take the zero article.
He prefers apples to grapes.
There were books, pens and pencils everywhere.
Honey is very good, especially in winter.
Do you live in Spain or France?
– 47 –
27
FACTORS DETERMINING THE CHOICE
OF THE ARTICLE
Successful communication is always based on positive and relevant relationships established between/among the partners and
situations of the communication process, on the other hand, as
well as the lexical/semantic and syntactic interaction between linguistic units in expressing the speaker’s intention, or the other.
The choice of the English article is to a great extent determined
by both the above-mentioned aspects, which makes it possible to
distinguish between two types of determination or influence: situational determination and semantic-syntactic characteristics of
the headword (noun) and its modifiers.
The situational determination in choosing articles always depends on the partners of communication and the local or temporal characteristics of the events described.
1. If the information presented is general or indefinite, i.e. has no
specific reference to the members of communication, the indefinite article is used with singular nouns and its substitutes – fully
substantivized adjectives, numerals, pronouns and participles
used in a general sense.
I’d like an apple/a glass of water, please. – Here you are.
Is he an Italian or a Frenchman?
He has got a ten today!
– 48 –
Indefiniteness is also realized through plural, uncountable and
proper nouns used in a general sense, which take the zero article.
He prefers apples to grapes.
There were books, pens and pencils everywhere.
Honey is very good, especially in winter.
Do you live in Spain or France?
2. If the situation happens to be definite, i.e. related to the members of communication in some important aspects – belonging,
temporal and local relationship, the definite article is used with
all kinds of nouns.
Look, the water is boiling!
Why not open the windows? It’s so stuffy here!
What can you say about the studies of 1990s at the University?
The Mr. Brown from the firm would like to retire.
Both types of the situational determination – definite and indefinite – may be present in one and the same sentence.
There is a key on the table. Take it.
There are keys on the table. Take them.
The British are a hospitable people.
In the first two sentences above indefiniteness is realized in syntactically determined there-sentences. Sentences of this kind always involve definiteness expressed by adverbials of time, place,
etc. The third sentence illustrates indefiniteness related to the semantics of the noun people (Lith. tauta).
– 49 –
Another factor influencing the choice of the article is semanticsyntactic determination, related to the meaning of the headword, the type of the attribute modifying the noun, and the function of the noun in the sentence.
When the noun is used alone without any attributes, the choice
of the article is determined by the character of the noun itself
(concrete-abstract, countable-uncountable, etc.) as well as the
speaker’s attitude towards it.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away. (In the proverb the
functions of the articles are nominating/numeric for a and
generic for the)
The apple is red and juicy. Take it! (The definite article is used
in its signifying function to reflect the speaker’s attitude towards the object, the situation being shared with the listener:
both of them see the apple)
Apples and other fruit are good to eat, especially in winter. (The
zero article is used in its nominating function giving a general/indefinite meaning to the nouns for the speaker/listener
to follow the recommendation)
When the noun takes one or more attributes, the situation may
be described in two ways depending on the character of the attribute.
The attribute is limiting/defining and its presence always invites
the definite article in its signifying or generic function. This kind
of attribute has a specifying meaning, that of relationship or belonging, as well as time and place, which refers the headword to
the above-mentioned surroundings.
– 50 –
You might be the very person we are looking for the job. (Lith.
kaip tik tas žmogus)
The website has the very latest music news. (Lith. pačias naujausias)
Was this the same Timothy Evans that Carol had been at school
with? (Lith. tas pats Timothy Evans, su kuriuo…?)
The report covered all the salient points of the case. (Lith. visas
svarbias bylos ypatybes)
She’ll inherit when she reaches the age of 18.
The article deals with the high-growth economies of Southeast
Asia.
Structurally, limiting attributes are
simple: the same book, the very day, etc.
derived: the following stop, etc.
phrasal: the new Government’s attempts to change the situation, the
music of the 20th century, the situation in the country, etc.
clausal: We had the impression that the candidate was quite competent in the subject.
In the latter case, the attributive-appositive clause that the candidate was quite competent in the subject discloses and explains the
meaning of the antecedent or headword impression.
Limiting attributes are expressed by
•adjectives: same, late (Lith. velionis), celebrated, great, etc.,
which point to some specific feature of the headword;
•adverbs: very;
• nouns in the common and genitive cases to express relationship, belonging to another substance, time or place, especially foreign titles: the Stalin times, the time of the Second World
– 51 –
War, the Browns’ children, the country’s economic situation, the
Emperor Napoleon, etc.
The pre-positive attributes the Browns’ and the country’s are also
called specifying genitives because of the possessive relationship
between them and their headwords children and economic situation respectively.
• present participles: following, preceding, etc.
•ordinal numerals, when the number of the objects introduced is known to the members of communication: The second bell has gone. Let’s take our seats. (at the theatre)
• prepositional phrases3: As I took the cup from her I was conscious of the click of the camera. John laughed, and the sound of
the laugh was hard.
• defining/limiting attributive clauses, which are closely connected with the antecedent and cannot be removed from the
sentence without destroying its meaning. They are rarely separated by a comma or a pause from the main clause and can
be joined asyndetically.
She was flattered by the compliments he paid her.
Look at the miracles that have happened before this.
She is the only girl I know who can play the guitar.
• appositive clauses, which disclose the meaning of an abstract
noun, such as idea, thought, impression, sense, hope, feeling,
news, belief, etc.
Prepositional phrases consist of a preposition followed by a noun or a nominal phrase. A prepositional phrase may contain various prepositions but the
most frequently used is of. Prepositional phrases serving as attributes may be
either limiting or descriptive, depending on the situation or context.
3
– 52 –
The argument that he had been fired before was decisive.
The attribute is descriptive/non-defining and it does not generally affect the choice of the article as long as only the inner qualities of the object described (size, quality, colour, composition,
etc.) remain within the scope of the notion presented. Thus, the
indefinite article is used with singular nouns in a general sense
and uncountable nouns in their aspective sense.
A lovely girl of 15 entered the room. (Lith. Į kambarį įėjo gražutė
15-os metų mergaitė.)
There was a (long) silence, and then she spoke.
We’ll have a red wine, please.
The zero article is used with plural and uncountable nouns in a
general sense.
Negotiations are finally due to begin after months of political
deadlock.
We’d like two glasses of sweet white wine.
However, the use of the zero article is also determined by the
lexical character of the descriptive attributes when modifying abstract nouns (see p. 33): degree (perfect, extreme, etc.), time (modern, ancient, etc.), social characteristics (social, personal, etc.), nationality (English, German, etc.), geography (London, New York,
etc.), authenticity (real, imaginary, etc.) and other. In most cases,
descriptive attributes and abstract or uncountable nouns may be
very closely connected semantically as if referring to one kind of
notion: dry sweet wine, early morning (the beginning), late morning
(the end of the period), extreme poverty/caution, etc.
– 53 –
Descriptive attributes are also characterized by different structures of expression. They are:
simple: a new book, an old story, etc.
derived: a well-known writer, a moving film, etc.
phrasal: a book of short stories, a two-month holiday, etc.
clausal: That was a story, which I remember till now.
Descriptive attributes are expressed by
•adjectives:
She had a decided mouth, a comical nose and sharp grey eyes.
She seemed to live in a happy little world of herself.
• cardinal numerals:
When he entered the room, three faces turned suddenly at his
direction.
The names of the two little ones seemed to be Sabina and Freda.
(In the latter example the choice of the definite article is determined by the situation)
•ordinal numerals when used in the meaning of one more,
additional, another the noun they modify is used with the
indefinite article:
He couldn’t calm down, so he ordered a third whiskey.
•prepositive participles (both present and past) and infinitives:
Suddenly he heard a startled sound from her: ‘Look at Phil! Is
he all right?’
His face coloured like a setting sun.
There was a long way to go.
– 54 –
He got a threatening message to leave the town as soon as possible.
When the attribute is expressed by a post-positive participle, it
may be either descriptive or limiting depending on the context:
She lived in a very small house, surrounded by a magnificent
garden. (descriptive)
I knocked at the door numbered twenty-two. (limiting)
He opened the door and saw a man standing on the doorstep.
(descriptive)
He took the path leading to the lonely cottage. (limiting)
The infinitive may also become a limiting attribute owing to a
certain situation:
She had missed the chance to leave him and he knew it.
• nouns in the common case:
The leather binding was worn and the pages were yellow with
age.
There was a telephone line running along the road and its wires
were carried over the bridge.
• the classifying genitive:
‘She is going to sail for Europe at noon tomorrow for a two-years’
stay,’ said Richard.
It was a pity she had never had a chance of playing Rosalind; she
would have looked all right in boy’s clothes.
They gave the girl a beautiful doll’s house as a birthday present.
– 55 –
• prepositional of-phrases carrying the meaning of
contents: a box of matches, a cup of coffee, a bowl of soup, etc.
quantity and measure: a lump of sugar, a pinch of salt, a weight
of two pounds, a distance of three miles, etc.
age: a boy of five, a woman of middle age, etc.
size: a tower of enormous size, a person of middle height, etc.
material: a box of cedar wood, a scarf of thick wool, a wall of
glass, etc.
composition: a flock of birds, a herd of cows, a crowd of people,
etc.
objects consisting of two parts of the same kind: a pair of gloves,
a pair of trousers, etc.
quality and characteristics: a feeling of relief, a question of importance, a woman of great charm, a man of courage, etc.
comparison: a beast of a man, a peach of a girl, an angel of a wife,
etc.
the double genitive: a friend of my brother’s, an opera of Verdi’s,
a sonata of Britten’s, etc.
Note: All other of-phrases tend to serve as limiting attributes,
hence the head-noun is used with the definite article.
•descriptive/non-defining attributive clauses, which give
additional information about the antecedent, and therefore,
can be easily removed from the sentence without destroying
its meaning. The clause may be replaced by an adjective and
placed in pre-position.
They managed to get fairly good parts in a play that had proved
a success. (a successful play)
– 56 –
This explains the use of the indefinite article with singular nouns
and the zero article with plural nouns. It is also necessary to relate
the choice of the article in structures of this kind to the syntactic function of the antecedent itself, i.e. they are usually found in
the functions of Subjective Complement, Object and Adverbial
Modifier, whose meaning is mostly new and relatively indefinite
in the situation.
I saw a girl, who was quite different from the ones on the bench.
They live in a village, whose name is difficult to remember.
Special attention should be paid to attribute-nouns. Descriptive attribute-nouns are usually common nouns, in the common
and genitive cases (classifying genitives), which point to the headword’s quality (a summer dress, a matter of importance, a fox’s fur),
composition (a group of boys), quantity (a distance of a mile), content (a bottle of milk), etc. The choice of the article fully depends
on the character of the attribute-noun.
Limiting attribute-nouns are usually proper and common nouns
in the common and genitive cases (a specifying genitive); they
usually refer the headword to people (the Smith’s family/the Smith
family), time (the achievements in the 20th century) or place (the village in the valley). The choice of the article in the attribute fully
depends on the general rules.
A special kind of attribute-nouns is the Apposition, which characterizes the headword through providing another name to it for
a certain purpose, such as introducing more additional information valid in the situation from the speaker’s point of view.
– 57 –
Salomėja Nėris, the best-known Lithuanian poetess, spent the
wartime in Russia.
They have also invited Ann, a girl from the nearest farm.
Mr. Brown, manager of the farm, turned out quite competent.
The choice of the article is fully determined by the character of the
noun taking it as well as the situation implied. Thus, the best-known
Lithuanian poetess adds to the important place Salomėja Nėris occupies in the literature of the second half of the 20th century, a girl from
the nearest farm points to Ann’s age and the number of the girls on
the farm, while manager of the farm indicates the position occupied by
Mr. Brown. The zero article is always required if the attribute-noun
refers to the post or position both in occupational, social or family
domains (Director, President, wife, uncle, etc.).
The article and the syntactic function of the noun. As we all
know, the article always precedes its headword, a noun or its
substitute with nominal features, to attach the group of words
a certain communicative meaning. The choice of the article is
determined to a considerable extent by the syntactic function of
the headword in the sentence, every function (part of sentence)
possessing its own specific characteristics. Thus, the first-level
functions relevant to the use of the article, which are relatively
independent and directly observed in the sentence, are those of
the Subject (veiksnio), the Subjective Complement/Predicative
(vardinės tarinio dalies), the Object (papildinio) and the Adverbial Modifier (aplinkybės).
The Subject is a part of sentence which indicates and introduces the agent or doer of the action expressed by a Predicate verb,
alone or followed by an Attribute.
– 58 –
The girls speak English and Spanish.
The news was good.
The coffee on the table was yours, wasn’t it?
The flat in Mountjoy Street, well placed in Dublin, had had its
Georgian plasterwork meticulously restored.
In the sentences above, the Subject takes the definite article due
to the definiteness of the nouns, situational in the first two sentences and attributive in the last two sentences) – the postpositive
limiting attributes refer the headword to the place and location.
The indefinite or the zero articles are employed when the Subject
carries or introduces new information unfamiliar to the situation
and communication partners.
A Mr. Brown would like to see you.
A girl of 15 came in and quietly sat down.
The indefinite article introduces new nouns, Brown and girl, described by descriptive attributes denoting social status and age.
The zero article is also possible with nouns as the Subjects if the
latter are abstract, uncountable or plural used in a general sense.
Love cannot be forced.
All bread is not baked in one oven.
Children and fools must not play with edged tools.
Countable singular nouns when used in the function of the Subject usually take the zero article when their meaning is abstract.
– 59 –
Night was falling when we returned home.
Day broke, and everything looked hopeful.
School is over! What fun!
The nouns night and day denote ‘darkness’ and ‘light’ respectively,
not parts of the 24 hours. The noun school refers to ‘lessons’, not
the building.
The Subjective Complement/Predicative is a part of sentence
which is the notional part of the Predicate to characterize the
Subject from the point of view of its quality, age, profession and
other aspects. Since the information here is mostly new and indefinite, the indefinite article is chosen for the singular nouns
used in a general sense and the zero article for plural, uncountable and proper nouns in a general sense.
My friend is a student.
The newcomers are first-year students.
Her favourite snack is bread, butter and tomatoes.
In the definite situation, the definite article is employed.
He is the leader of the group.
My brother is the man to speak to about it.
However, if the noun in this function refers more to the position
or state rather than to the person, the zero article is preferable.
He has been manager of the firm for a decade.
That was President Adamkus, wasn’t he?
– 60 –
The Object is a part of sentence that completes or adds to the
meaning of the preceding transitive verb. It mostly introduces
new information in the sentence related to the Predicate verb and
that is why the singular nouns in this function usually take the
indefinite article and plural, uncountable and proper nouns are
used with the zero article.
This article describes an experiment in interactive language
learning.
Role-play activities can involve written texts.
They showed interest in the activity, which was quite unusual to
them.
They appointed her (a) secretary to the Minister.
In the latter case, the noun secretary takes no article when it points to
the post she is appointed to and the indefinite article shows that there
are more people occupying the post (one of the secretaries).
The Adverbial Modifier is a part of sentence, which introduces
circumstantial characteristics of the subject-predicate units, such
as time, place, manner, reason, consequence, purpose, condition
and comparison of action. The choice of the article in the Adverbial Modifier is generally determined by the situational peculiarities of the utterance or sentence as well as the character of the
noun or another nominal element employed.
In the morning, we decided to stay at home for a couple of hours.
On a lovely spring morning, the children were difficult to keep
in the room. They wanted to play in the yard or go for a walk to
the nearest park.
Do they live in the USA or Peru?
– 61 –
The second-level functions of the headword are those of the Attribute and the Independent Elements.
The Attribute characterizes the headword from the point of view
of its inner and outer qualities, which are also realized through
descriptive and limiting attributes (see p. 50–57).
The Independent Elements (parenthesis, direct address) are
words and phrases, which introduce the speaker’s attitude towards the content of the utterance.
To tell the truth, they could do better.
Well, students, shall we stop here?
Thus, from all you have read here you can see that situational determination is the most important factor in choosing the relevant
article, which fully confirms the suggestion to accept the article as
a communicative category.
– 62 –
PRACTICE SECTION
Exercise 1. Comment on the functions of the indefinite and zero
articles.
1. But I dare say you don’t remember an old woman like me?
2. After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. 3. She glanced
at Peter and saw that a tear was trickling down his nose. 4. Not a
word was spoken, not a sound was made. 5. A voice replied, telling him to keep out of the moonlight. 6. Why is it a girl that has
to be so silly to catch a husband? 7. I remember now, I thought I
felt a bone, and I swallowed a large mouthful of bread to send it
down. 8. A traveller must be able to walk long distances. 9. The
girl had started through a door to an inner office. 10. Can a bird
fly faster than an aeroplane? 11. Bill has just finished an all-afternoon conference with a media representative. 12. A week or
two passed, but he didn’t get a job. 13. In a sheltered corner was a
wattle tree, its foliage silvery against the olivegreen bush, its blossoms a drift of gold. 14. Sally’s seed of her future soul was her
love for her mother, an aged bed-ridden woman. 15. Here I am,
he thought, talking to Earl Fox, a scientist who won the Nobel
Prize. 16. I began once at a dinner to tell a good story. 17. I know
he couldn’t love a Linton. 18. She comes home to a late tea, and
after tea she never sews. 19. Tom Pinch’s sister was governess in
a family. 20. We’ve been here three years; and before us there was
a Mr. Johnson who used to live here. 21. He hesitated a moment
at the door and tapped on it. 22. It was as good as a play to see
his father with the children, but such a play as brings smiles with
– 63 –
tears behind. 23. There was a pain in his eyes, which could hardly
be seen without tears. 24. And like them, so did Andrew Rose
move from horror back to horror. 25. Anger splashed up in Ethan
before he knew it and he was surprised. 26. But then trade was as
bad at Harve as everywhere else, and in a few months he found
himself once more without employment. 27. Victor laughed.
‘You’re a disgrace for military tradition.’28. It was life, a dog’s life,
but life was like that. 29. It was anger that seized Mrs. Strickland
and her pallor was the pallor of a cold and sudden rage. 30. There
was a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, a creeping horror
along his nerves. 31. After a final wave of the hand, Mr. Golspie,
a very massive figure now in his huge ulster, made a slow, steady,
and very dignified progress down the gangway. 32. There was a
numbness in the streets, a sense of disbelief that resulted in pockets of silence. 33. She lay in the silvery shadows with courage rising and made the plans that a sixteen-year-old makes when life
has been so pleasant that defeat is an impossibility and a pretty
dress and a clear complexion are weapons to vanquish face. 34. It
was a pleasure to see a laughing tenderness in his eyes.
Exercise 2. Insert either the indefinite or zero article, state their
functions and reasons for it.
1. Exxon has announced ___ 26% increase in profits. 2. Be ___
angel and get me ___ cup of ___ coffee. 3. ___ angles are measured in degrees. ___ angle that measures 90 degrees is ___ right
angle, less than 90 degrees is ___ acute angle, and more than 90
degrees is ___ obtuse angle. 4. She gave ___ anguished cry and
collapsed. 5. As far as I am concerned this is ___ great proposal. 6. Doctors often give ___ people a course of ___ antibiotics,
when they have to take ___ fixed number of pills each day for se– 64 –
veral days. 7. He has ___ unusual style of dress. 8. He is accused
of ___ cruelty to ___ animals. 9. The announcement of ___
Prince Charles’ visit caused widespread media interest. 10. I’ve
done my best. At least I can go to ___ bed tonight with ___ clear
conscience. 11. I’ve found that when ___ man steps back from
very nearly dying and resumes what can be called ___ normal
life, ___ optimism is almost ___ automatic response. 12. ___
woman addicted to ___ carrot juice could hardly be considered
___ danger to ___ young man like Jimmy. 13. ___success,
which encourages the repetition of ___old behaviour, is not nearly as good ___ teacher as ___failure. 14. ___Children who have
not received ___flu shots must visit the school doctor. 15. Rose
Waterford had ___blistering tongue. 16. I was like ___ child
brought to her first school, or ___ little untrained maid who has
never left home before. 17. He lurched away like ___ frightened
horse barely missing the piano stool. 18. He had ___ intended
destination. 19. The young man, who was tall and thin with ___
sun-streaked fair hair, and ___ wind- and sun-burned face, who
wore ___ sun-faded flannel shirt, ___ pair of ___ peasant’s trousers and rope-soled shoes, leaned over and put the heavy pack up
unto his shoulders. 20. What you need is what ___ working girl
needs, ___ holiday that is ___ rest. 21. He rose his hand in ___
mocking salute. 22. For ___ minute or more we all sat in ___
silence. 23. ___day or two later there came ___ letter from Mrs.
Dornell to her husband. 24. As ___man sows, so he shall reap.
25. London is ___ pleasant thing indeed to ___ lonely man. 26.
It was ___ cottage built like ___ mansion, having ___ central
hall with ___ wooden gallery running round it, and ___ rooms
no bigger than closets. 27. They are ___ decent men, they are ___
polite men. 28. Her answer to ___Moore’s adieu was only ___
slight bent of the head and ___ gentle, serious smile. 29. My wife
– 65 –
is accomplished. She is perfectly at home in ___ literature, at
home in ___art, at home in ___ music, at home in ___ science, in
short at home everywhere, except… at home. 30. The sound itself
had taken on ___ weariness; ___ repetition had lulled its terror.
31. They have shown it poisoning ___every pleasure till ___life
is so intolerable that ___ discovery and ___ punishment come
as ___ welcome relief. 32. There was ___ momentary silence. ‘I
don’t like it, Fontine.’ 33. ‘You’re ___ beauty,’ he said kissing the
tips of her fingers. 34. I looked to see if there was ___ light in the
place. 35. ___ good films can serve as ___ valuable pedagogical
aid, both for ___ classroom use and ___ self-study.
Exercise 3. Comment on the use of the definite article.
1. Then holding the glass and sipping the water very slowly he
stood in front of the big map on the wall and studies the offensive
possibilities in the country above Navacerrada. 2. On the evening
of Labour Day, the empty field near the mills was no longer empty. 3. The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward
in the pleasure of his work. 4. The path led to a labyrinth, some
choked wilderness, and not to the house at all. 5. The three men
made their way with Lewis leading them through the dim, purple-lighted maze of corridors. 6. Thus in life there is ever the intellectual and the emotional nature – the mind that reasons, and
the mind that feels. 7. He sat down on the vacant end of the sofa.
8. He lay there, staring up at the ceiling, all gratitude, and all bitterness. 9. At what particular point did you mention the word
‘marriage’, Dorian? 10. The record lasted over nearly 20 years, the
amount of the separate entries growing larger as time went on.
11. The lights changed from the dusk-blue of April to the purple-grey of madness. 12. His frequent call at Aunt Pitty’s house
– 66 –
was the greatest humiliation of all. 13. The Willoughbys left the
town as soon as they were married. 14. All around us the highest
peaks of the Pyrenees still shone in the last light of day. 15. The
Mr Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour. 16. He had been absent
and abstracted all day long with the thought of the coming event.
17. The only trouble was that the soldiers crowding the streets
wore the wrong kind of uniforms, the money was in the hands
of the wrong people. 18. They decided to start off the following
morning. 19. Bateman insisted that Edward go ahead: ‘You have
got the ideas and the capacity. Why shouldn’t you become the
richest man between Australia and the States?’ 20. A few gulls
circled beating in the gun metal sky. 21. I put myself in harmony with the universe. 22. The black buffalo is always aggressive.
23. The personality of the artist is the most interesting thing.
24. The wicked always think other people as bad as themselves.
Exercise 4. Insert either the definite or zero article.
1. ___ man is ___ only animal that uses ___ language. 2. I am
sorry, but ___ ‘Paris’ is ___ wrong answer. There was ___ increasing anxiety over ___ outcome of ___ talks. 3. Williams
won ___ tournament with ___ apparent ease. 4. ___ police have
renewed their appeal for ___ help from ___ public. 5. As ___
crisis grew worse, ___ local community leaders appealed for ___
unity. 6. ___ technical specifications are included in ___ appendix to ___ Chapter 9. 7. Cracks began to appear in ___ ceiling.
8. ___ Ms Haley’s parents are ___ immigrants from ___India,
which will make her ___ first Indian-American female governor
in America should she be elected in November, as seems likely. 9. ___ organic foods are no longer ___ sole domain of ___
healthy eating fanatics. 10. ___ red is usually ___ dominant col– 67 –
our in his paintings. 11. ___ centre was bought with ___ money
donated by ___ former Beatle, George Harrison. 12. ___ bank
has promised ___ donation of £24 million towards ___ disaster
fund. 13. Do you know he has been ___ major donor to ___
Labour Party? 14. Despite all ___ doom and gloom in ___ City,
there are still some bright spots in ___ stock market. 15. The children were wearing ___ traditional Norwegian dress (the clothes
that are typical of a particular place, time in history, or occasion).
16. They performed the play in ___ Victorian dress. 17. ___
volcanoes occur when molten rock from deep within ___ earth
reaches ___ surface. 18. ___ majority of ___ crimes are committed by ___ adolescents and ___ young adults. 19. ___ Prince is
___ patron of more than 270 organizations. ___ Prince’s Trust
was set up in 1976. It aims to help ___ disadvantaged young
people achieve their goals by giving them ___ encouragement
and ___ financial help. 20. But with ___ youngsters not as fit
as these developing ___ serious adult conditions, ___ pressure’s
on to get to ___ grips with ___ UK’s growing weight problem.
21. Four overweight teenagers have become ___ first white children in ___ Britain to be diagnosed with ___ type of diabetes,
normally found in ___ adults. ___ doctors say it highlights ___
health risks facing ___ growing number of ___ obese children.
They say that without ___ better diet, and more exercise, ___
problem will only get worse. 22. It would be like ___ abortion.
___ few became ___ millions. And this is what will happen to
___ Church. And ___ Church has got to keep to ___ Christ’s
standards in its beliefs and in its morals. 23. ___ Prime Minister made no attempt to answer their criticism. 24. Write your
answers in ___ space provided. 25. We managed to drag in ___
two men apart before they could harm each other. 26. I saw ___
Theresa at ___ graveside, standing apart from ___ rest of ___
– 68 –
family. 27. ___ children’s poor health was apparent from their
physical appearance. 28. It’s still pretty iffy (doubtful) about us
going to ___ Algarve. 29. He, too, in ___ first winter of his old
age, longed for ___ South. 30. I think I know why ___ painters
had to come to ___ Paris sometime in their career, ___ earlier
___ better. 31. ___ French restaurant Jimmy took him to was
quietly elegant, gleaming with ___ snowy tablecloths and ___
large arrangements of ___ cut flowers. 32. ___ first alarm clock,
which woke ___ sleeper by gently rubbing his feet, was invented
by___Leonardo da Vinci. 33. ___ absence of ___ text during
___ retelling encourages ___ generative use, but having it present
during ___ retelling ensures that more of ___ target vocabulary
is used.
Exercise 5. Fill in either the definite or indefinite article.
1. Meanwhile, ___ Obama administration appealed against ___
judge’s decision to overturn its moratorium on drilling in ___
deep waters. 2. There was ___ press release announcing ___
Senator’s resignation. 3. Ms Baker stunned her fans with ___
announcement that she was quitting ___ music business. 4. ___
rocks stick out of ___ water at ___ angle of 45 degrees. 5. They
have launched ___ appeal to send ___ food to ___ flood victims.
6. She has been on ___ dole for over ___ year. 7. The government has agreed to dole out ___ additional £5 million to schools.
8. Out on ___ street, ___ dog began to bark. 9. He had been
aghast, too, when he asked ___ room clerk at Westbury (hotel)
___ price of ___ room that had been reserved for him. 10. It was
one of her nights. You never know which one you’re going to get:
___ grand dame, ___ anarchist, ___ little girl with ___ bow
around her waist and ___ lisp. 11. Seated at ___ table to which
– 69 –
___ headwaiter had led them, Jimmy ordered ___ martini. ___
second whiskey he had had ___ night of ___ three letters had
left him with ___ headache and he hadn’t had ___ drink since.
12. On ___ other side of ___ door was ___ handle. 13. ___ moon
had just risen, very golden, over ___hill, and like ___ bright,
powerful, watching spirit peered through ___ bars of ___ ash
tree’s half-naked boughs. 14. ___ ‘Read and Retell’ activity involves retelling ___ written text, but ___ listener has ___ set of
guiding questions to ask ___ reteller so that it seems like ___
interview. 15. Edward ___ Confessor was ___ king of England
from 1042 to 1066, ___ son of Etheldred ___ Unready. He was
considered ___ very holy man and in 1161 ___ Pope made him
___ saint and gave him ___ title of ‘Confessor’.
Exercise 6. Fill in the blanks with appropriate articles before
nouns modified by:
a) numerals:
1. ___ three children came running along the desk. 2. Turn to
___ page 3 to read our interview. 3. Everything they had done
in ___ three weeks since they had come back from the shack
had made him more certain of that. 4. She had only been out of
the hospital ___ five weeks, but she had beaten him in ___ two
straight sets. 5. But on ___ fifth day he took the car to ___ third
floor, stepped out and never came back. 6. Monte Carlo was suddenly full of kindness and charm, ___ one place in the world that
held sincerity. 7. And if he takes me on for ___ second year, I’m
to get three hundred. That means that in ___ years I’d have the
best part of ___ four thousand pounds. 8. The office of Professor
Fox was on ___ twelfth floor of the Physics Building. 9. He was
explaining the work that was going forward – how one was dis– 70 –
charging, another taking in cargo, and ___ third making ready
for sea. 10. Jan Wadleigh, not in Madrid, a glass in his hand, was
standing talking to Elliot Steinharold and ___ third man, portly
in dark suit, the face, bronzed by the sun, under a shock of iron
grey hair. 11. A woman, so long and slender that she seemed as
fluid as the shadows and he had to look ___ second time to be
sure that she was not in truth a shadow.
b) participles:
1. The newcomer, unconscious of her interest, cast ___ wondering
eye over the menu. 2. Down ___ twisting road we went without
a word. 3. ___ knot tightening by lungs held for another second
and then loosened. 4. What would he do with ___ remaining
years? 5. It is clustered around ___ abandoned lighthouse, ___
lighthouse that was once needed when there was water enough
around to let big ships come and go. 6. There was ___ quick startled wonder in her eyes when she opened the door and saw Jack
standing there. 7. Then he followed his unknown friend back to
___ lighted hall. 8. A red neon sigh flickered dimly, buzzing like
___ dying insect. 9. We went along ___ broad, carpeted passage,
and then turned left. 10. Andrew was ___ man endowed with
supreme patience.
c) infinitives:
1. I believe that I could walk to the mill and knock on the door
and I would be welcome except that they have ___ orders to challenge travelers and ask to see their papers. 2. He had not yet had
___ opportunity to test his judgement and, anyway, the judgement was his own responsibility. 3. She thought how often he
would come to her like this in ___ months to come with a need
which was not only that of the spirit. 4. ___ to cancel it will have
– 71 –
to come from Madrid. 5. ‘It would have been ___ intelligent and
correct thing to do under the circumstances,’ Robert Jordan was
thinking. 6. Also I know ___ good places to eat that are illegal
but with good food. 7. They seemed to be controlled by one man
in the middle of the rush who has ___ reason to be going in that
direction. 8. Tom stood there watching the scene, then made ___
move to follow her but thought better of it. 9. I tried to breathe,
but ___ effort to inhale knotted my chest tighter, forcing breath
out instead of in.
d) nouns in the genitive case:
1. He lost himself in search of the ultimate answer to the enigma
of ___ man’s role on this earth. 2. She wondered looking at ___
Mrs. Carlton’s face, how often she had wept silently into her pillow when her husband had failed to come. 3. They can carry on
an amusing and animated conversation without ___ moment’s
reflection to what they are saying. 4. ___ aunt Pitty’s apprehensions quieted when she saw that Rhett was on his best behaviour.
5. She saw ___ girl’s face break into laughter, her hand go up and
tousle his hair affectionately. 6. Denwaby Close was not just a
substantial farm; it was a monument to ___ man’s endurance and
skill. 7. The books were so much a part of ___ room’s decorative
scheme that you wouldn’t have dared to have taken one. 8. He
turned his head to review the crescent of landscape around the
beach, as if through his fresh eyes ___ doctor’s wife could renew
her sense of ___ island’s beauty. 9. The man came out of the twilight when the greenish yellow of ___ sun’s last light still lingered
in the west. 10. In less than an hour she had packed two bags with
___ week’s worth of clothing for both of them.
– 72 –
e) nouns in the common case:
1. During the next few months the cub took every opportunity
that came her way to harry elephants and there were many such
occasions for ___ elephant season was beginning. 2. ___ mill
hands said that Leslie kept them working all summer in order
to be able to take their money away. 3. It was necessary that ___
Delaney cards should be filled during the third period. 4. Robert got up and lifted the sacks away from ___ cave entrance and
leaned them on each side of ___ tree trunk. 5. ___ school bell
was Kenny Stern’s secret love. 6. I had arrived early and had been
taken upstairs to admire ___ Hale children.
f) prepositional phrases:
1. How good to be like ___ hand within a glove that stretches
out and grows wonderfully cold in the hot sand. 2. Aunt Carrie and Julia’s mother, Mrs. Lambert, lived in the morning-room,
___long narrow room with Empire furniture. 3. This passenger
had come with ___ ship from the Baltic state that owned her, but
there was something about his appearance, in spite of his clothes,
his moustache, that suggested he was really ___ native of this
land. 4. The snow was falling through ___ hole in the roof on ___
coals of the fire. 5. It was dark and he looked at ___ light across
the road and shook his arms across his chest to warm them.
g) of-phrases:
1. The Duchess wore ___ dressing jacket of the same colour made
of velvet and trimmed at the neck and wrists with ___ bands
of dark sable. 2. ___ surface of the lagoon at Dee Why, spunkled with seagulls whose plumage gleamed incredibly white, was
___ heaven of peace under its sand-hills. 3. Beyond the lighted
desks the harbour was ___ sheet of sparkling silver under the
– 73 –
full moon. 4. ___ mile of cotton fields smiled up to a warm sun.
5. Jan imagined in the slight pause that she could see ___ ironical
lift of Mrs. Carlton’s brows. 6. It was a big drop from being ___
wife of Delphin Slade to being his widow. 7. ___ idea of spending
___ rest of my life buying and selling, using my days to increase
my wealth, which is already more that sufficient, is distasteful to
me. 8. This solitary passenger was ___ man of medium height
but of a massive build, square and bulky about the shoulders and
thick-chest. 9. But when ___ squad of bearded men came lumbering down the steps, laden with ___ assortment of stolen articles and she saw Charles’ sword in ___ hands of one, she did cry
out. 10. Now it happened that he went to call on ___ friend of
his on ___ very first afternoon of his summer vacation. 11. After
nearly ___ hour of watching, no tea had come. 12. Then ___ impossibility of reasoning with this woman overwhelmed him. 13. I
left her quite happy after ___ arrival of the nurse, propped up on
pillows with a falling temperature. 14. She was ___ steamship of
some 3,500 tons.
h) attributive clauses:
1. ___ servant who opened the door and showed where to go,
gave me an unpleasant look as I passed him and went into ___
big room where two old gentlemen were sitting, looking at me
with interest. 2. I’m about to have a conference with ___ young
woman whose conscience is probably giving her twinges of remorse. 3. Then he waved his hand in ___ direction the woman
had called from and started to walk between the lines. 4. At the
left, just past the top, there was ___ loop of road where cars could
turn and there were lights winking in front of ___ big stone
building that bulked long and dark against the night sky. 5. Sure,
Gaylord’s was ___ place you needed to complete your education.
– 74 –
6. In her hands she brought ___ little newspaper parcel, which
she gave to Mary who opened it. 7. It was so quiet in the cave,
suddenly, that he could hear ___ hissing noise the wood made
burning on ___ hearth where Pilar cooked. 8. ___ road, which
was broad and oiled and well-constructed, made a turn to the left
at the far end of the bridge and then swung out of sight around
the curve to the right. 9. As we were sitting together, suddenly
there came into her eyes ___ look that I had never seen there
before. 10. His hand reached out for ___ Turkish cigarette he
had been offered. 11. The gate led onto ___ immense courtyard,
around which were situated medieval houses with balconies. 12.
She had ___curious, receptive mind which found much pleasure
and amusement in listening to other folk.
i) the pronoun other:
1. ‘I have put you in ___other bedroom this time,’ she said preceding him up the stairs, ‘because the west one has been done up
and it stinks a bit.’ 2. ‘Do you know what you are going to do if
it turns out badly?’ ‘I’ll try ___other time.’ 3. But he saw on ___
other side, nestling among the trees a white man’s house; he made
up his mind and rather gingerly, began to walk. 4. McCain was
waiting at the shed with ___other two men who were to make
the jump. 5. Then she came and sat down at ___other side of the
hearth. 6. On ___other hand, her own feelings were a corrective
influence. 7. Kate! But he was here only ___other day! 8. Sometimes he had been irritated by her calls, at ___other times moved
by husbandly tenderness of the sound of the low, familiar, musical voice from a distant city, ___other side of a continent. 9. ‘Is
he cutting down on smoking?’ ‘Slightly, but not enough to make
any real difference. It will take ___other two years or even more.’
10. He spoke in a jerky, nervous fashion and with some giggling
– 75 –
laughters in between but somehow impressed me with fear more
than ___other. 11. I’m afraid he hasn’t been able to cope while
all ___others have been able to. 12. There was ___other thing I
liked in Mrs. Strickland. 13. That shows you what I mean. I daresay there are ___other things. 14. At supper Minnie felt that she
must have had ___other hard day. 15. You have never in your life
let ___other person make an important decision for you.
Exercise 7. Fill in the blanks with appropriate articles before the
nouns of the following semantic groups:
a) names of persons:
1. ___ Christine was now determined to be especially kind to
him. 2. She looked into her glass and saw ___ prettier Carrie
than she had seen before. 3. Wherever ___ Rayns went they
moved like a private circus. 4. ‘I’m at the residence of ___ Mr. Adams!’ ‘___ Mr. Adams who is with the Department of Galactic
Investigations?’ 5. Their governess was ___ Miss Robinson, quite
a nice girl, young and rather pretty. 6. When ___ Rhodes sees
that moon it can mean either great good fortune, or utter disaster. 7. But it is not simply a tour de force for ___ white-haired,
pink-cheeked, almost cherubic Oliver. 8. If you are ___ Napoleon you will play a game of power, if you are ___ Leonardo, you’ll
play for knowledge: the stakes hardly matter. 9. Even his closest
friends – ___ little John and ___ Scarlett never questioned him
about his intentions. 10. This was ___ Magda with whom you
could be on friendly terms, who made no demands on you, who
met you completely on your own level. 11. A little way off he saw
his wife in a long chair talking with ___ Davidsons. 12. The removal of ___ late Mr. Curry was rapid and professional. 13. She
was not quite certain that ___ Edward who wrote to her now was
– 76 –
___ same Edward that she had known. 14. ___ Swithin smiled
and nodding at ___ Bossiney said: ‘Why, you’re quite ___ Monte
Christo.’ 15. It seemed Walter didn’t pay any attention to ___
Kitty. 16. I was not surprised, therefore, on Monday night when
___ Mr. Latimer, a very fashionably dressed young man, came
up to my rooms and asked me to accompany him in a cab, which
was waiting at the door. 17. There was ___ unimportant Matisse and ___ lovely little Manet on the far wall and one noticed
at once that there was a sofa but not a desk. 18. Who knows – I
may be ___ Orson Welles of the fifties. 19. ___ Miss Ophelia
commenced opening a set of drawers. 20. ___ poor little Megan
– coming over the hill!
b) geographical names:
1. On the banks of ___ Lake Tulla in ___ Scottish Highlands,
wind-sculpted trees emerge momentarily during a snowstorm.
2. ___ Dubai now boasts the world’s tallest building, giant malls
and some two million residents, who depend on desalinated seawater and air-conditioning – and thus cheap energy – to live in
___ Arabian desert. 3. More than half of the world’s large rivers
are now dammed. Some, like ___ Colorado, are tapped out. Persistent drought has left a ‘bathtub ring’ in ___ Lake Mead, which
supplies water to much of ___ Southwest. 4. ___ Dover is a part
of ___ Kent, ___ south-east England, and the nearest English
town to ___ France. The part of ___ English Channel between
___ Dover and ___ Calais (called ___ Strait of ___ Dover) is 21
miles/34 kilometres wide and is one of the busiest sea routes in
the world. 5. ___ East Side is the area in ___ New York City between ___ Fifth Avenue and ___ East River. 6. ___ Fleet Street
is a street in ___ central London, between ___ City and ___
West End, where most of ___ Britain’s major newspapers used to
– 77 –
have their main offices. 7. ___ Mid-Atlantic states lie along ___
Atlantic Ocean to ___ south of ___ New England. The region
is also called ___ East Coast. 8. Without much thinking, she
reached ___ Dearborn Street. 9. It was not ___ Monte Carlo I
had known, or perhaps the truth was that it pleased one better.
10. The photographs of famous skiers of the past hanging above
the great fireplace now looked like mementos of ___ much earlier
America. 11. Next morning, back from shopping in ___ Cannes,
Nicole found a note saying that Dick had taken the small car and
gone up into ___ Provence for a few days by himself. 12. Here
are some of his belongings such as the sword given to him in ___
Caucasus and many historical documents. 13. One of the most
striking of the many unique exhibits is a marble sarcophagus – a
relic of ancient art found in excavations on ___ Taman Peninsula
in ___ Crimea. 14. Michael looked quizzically at his parent. Did
he quite understand ___ England of today? 15. Over his wine
Dick looked at them again, in their happy faces, the dignity that
surrounded and pervaded the party, he perceived all the maturity of ___ older America. 16. This was not ___ Paris that good
Americans went to when they died. 17. Having stayed near four
months in ___ Hamburgh, I came from thence by land to ___
Hague. 18. He had grown up at the shores of ___ Lake Superior
and had sailed small boats ever since he was a kid. 19. They were
in ___ Mediterranean passing ___ Gibraltar, but the weather, if
anything, was worse. 20. Isabel had caused the house, a replica
of a palace on ___ Grand Canal at ___ Venice, to be furnished
by an English expert in the style of Louis XV. 21. Wisconsin was
on ___ Wisconsin River, on the north bank of, a matter of seven miles above the junction with ___ Mississippi. 22. He saw
the lights of ___ Harbour Springs off across ___ Little Traverse
Bay. 23. He told stories to beautiful girls about his fighting in
– 78 –
___ Solomon Islands, in ___ Casablanca. 24. Were going to
climb ___ Monte Solaro, dine at a tavern we favoured, and walk
down in the moonlight. 25. He took her for a ride on the river
under ___ Niagara Falls and held her hand lovingly when they
walked in the sunlight of the Northern summer. 26. On the edge
of ___ Sahara we ran into a plague of locusts and the chauffeur
explained kindly that they were bumble-bees. 27. The shell was
found overturned, the next day, near ___ Bear Mountain. 28. No
one should leave the park without visiting the outlook station on
the rim of ___ Great Canyon, for a view of ____ Lower Falls of
___ Yellowstone River. 29. Of course she had read novels about
___ Malay Archipelago and she had formed an impression of a
sombre land with great ominous rivers and a single silent impenetrable jungle. 30. Do you know what it’s like when there’s sixty
degrees of frost in ___ Arctic – and it still doesn’t freeze? 31. In
1919 I happened to be in ___ Chicago on my way to ___ Far
East. 32. After all it was the completest thing, and perhaps the
deadest in ___ London of today. 33. Descending to another ledge
she reached a low curved wall and looked down seven hundred
feet to ___ Mediterranean Sea. 34. They knew that Davidson
had worked in ___ Canaries for five years before he met his wife.
35. They settled in a handsome villa in ___ Tyrol and in a short
time became conspicuous in the social life of the province.
c) miscellaneous proper nouns:
1. On the other bank of ___ Potomac lies ___Arlington National Cemetery, where ___President Kennedy was buried. 2. Tom
and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read
aloud to him from ___ Saturday Evening Post. 3. His own ideas
of a riotous holiday meant picnicking on the grass of ___ Green
Park with his family and half a dozen paper bags full of food.
– 79 –
4. After that, if the night was mellow, I strolled down ___Madison Avenue past ___ old Murray Hotel, and over __ 33rd Street
to ___ Pennsylvania Station. 5. Then still keeping a hundred
yards behind, we followed into ___ Oxford and so down ___
Regent Street. 6. I graduated from ___ New Haven in 1915, just
a quarter of a century after my father. 7. He turned on the radio.
___ Mozart, unworried and spring-like, accompanied them as
far as ___Bronx. 8. He remembered having seen her sitting in
___ Botanical Gardens waiting for Bosiney. 9. This was in ___
Broadway Central, which was then one of the most important
hotels in the city. 10. He has been to ___Eton and ___Oxford
and he doesn’t forget to let you know it. 11. I presume that it
was committed in the cloakroom of ___ House of Commons.
12. The conversation was in ___ German, for it developed that
he had been educated at ___ Göttingen. 13. I know a girl who
studies ___ French and she pays 17 shillings an hour. And I’m
going to take lessons in ___ English language, which is my native
language, so I won’t give you more than a shilling. 14. He had an
idea that anything accepted by a paper was published immediately, and as he had sent the manuscript in on ___ Friday, he expected it to come out ___ following Sunday. 15. Every morning
her mother had read two newspapers from cover to cover: ___
Daily Telegraph and ___ Daily Mirror. 16. Approaching ___
Malt Street, ___ Soho, Soames thought with wonder of those
seven years at ___ Brighton. 17. And he went back into ___ City
to do what still lay before him. 18. He leaned on the ship’s rail
as the tugs nosed ___ Victoria into the wharf. 18. Charlie was a
youngish man of thirty-five, graduate of ___ Stanford University, member of ___ Nile Club and ___ Unity Club, a conservative
speaker for ___ Republican Party during campaigns, in short, a
rising man in every way. 19. Hundreds of Canada geese are pre– 80 –
paring to start their migration to ___ southern United States.
I wonder how many of these will survive after their long trip to
___ Gulf of ___ Mexico area. What would you think if 30,000
riflemen sat on ___ Serengeti Plain to kill animals that they do
not need for sustenance? 20. ___ Uquq, a 16-year-old walrus rescued from ___ Alaska coast, lingers underwater at ___ California’s Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. 21. ___ Commonwealth
is an association of 53 independent nations, plus several British
dependencies such as ___ Bermuda, ___ Falkland Islands and
___ Gibraltar. 22. ___ second Monday in ___ March is celebrated as ___ Commonwealth Day, though most British people
are not aware of this, and a special message is broadcast to ___
Commonwealth by ___ Queen. 23. ___ East India Company is
an English company started in 1600 to develop trade in ___ East
Indies (the islands off the south-east coast of ___ Asia, including
___ Java and ___ Borneo). 24. ___ Great Salt Lake is a large
shallow lake in ___ US state of ___Utah, whose water is more
salty than seawater. To the west is ___ Great Salt Lake Desert
with ___ Bonneville Slat Flats, where drivers have established
the highest speeds on land.
d) nouns denoting unique objects:
1. A few gulls circled beating in ___ gun metal sky. 2. I can see
___ rippled sky fluffy with clouds, and ___ white-whipped sea.
3. Now ___ sun came clear of the bank of cloud and flooded ___
world with light. 4. ___ miserable world, ___ wet world, but always and predominantly ___ white world of softness and beauty
and strangely muffled sound. 5. It would be hours before ___ air
would warm up even under ___ hot Mediterranean sun. 6. ___
sun blazed down of ___ cloudless noon sky, the spears of the
palm leaves shredded ___ sunlight over him. 7. Sattorn stood
– 81 –
quietly and stared at ___ world before him, at the upthrust of
towers shining in ___ morning sun, and the green of park and
meadow, at the dark green of trees. 8. ___ sun was so full of
promise, and ___ sea was whipped white with ___ merry wind.
9. Far away to the south-east ___ dazzling white sun climbed up
above ___ cloudless horizon. 10. I kept my eyes on ___ horizon,
sharp against the bright blue of ___ winter sky.
e) names of seasons and parts of the day:
1. I should remember the rose-garden in ___ summer, and the
birds that sang at ___ dawn. 2. The weather was wet and cold for
quite a week, as it often can be in the west country in ___ early
summer. 3. I am transported from this indifferent island to the
realities of ___ English spring. 4. In ___ spring of 1881 he was
visiting his old schoolfellow and client G. Liversedge. 5. It was
___ early spring when she chanced to meet Walter Fane. 6. You
know old blood gets so thick during ___ winter. 7. Whether in
___ winter or ___ summer, ___ spring or ___ autumn it’s always got its fun and its excitement. 8. ___ winter settled down
over the mountains and the long trip from the city to her ceased
to be an adventure for Bart, and became a hardship. 9. Indeed ___
night itself is only a faint dusting over of ___ day, a wash of silver through the still warm fold of ___ afternoon. 10. It was ___
early morning and the air was grateful and cool. 11. Marion went
out into ___ still smooth night. 12. ___ all morning this went on
and into ___ afternoon. 13. ___ every day I was up at ___ dawn,
clearing, planting, working on my house, and at ___ night when
I threw myself on my bed I was to sleep like a log all through ___
night. 14. She intends to spend ___ night at the lake residence.
15. It was ___ cloudy afternoon with an Italian butcher selling a
pound of meat to a very old woman. 16. Adrian smiled, remem– 82 –
bering ___ morning after that terrible night in San Francisco.
17. She existed, aged 19, seated in front of the mirror on ___
March night in the middle of the century because her mother
had failed to live up to her destiny. 18. It was ___ unpromising
afternoon, already half dark, ___ afternoon for early tea and entertainment on television. 19. By ___ day he is a banker, but by
___ night he sings in the club. 20. That was back in ___ days of
the horse and cart. 21. It’s been raining ___ morning, ___ day
and ___ night since we arrived. 22. ___ night was falling by the
time they arrived home. 23. She was exhausted from being woken
___ night after ___ night by the baby.
f) names of meals:
1. Let’s have ___ early lunch and then go to the cinema. 2. She was
not out to give the mother ___ perfect Sunday night dinner. 3. She
picked at ___ delicious breakfast Doreen had prepared for her,
but she had n appetite for it. 4. ___ dinner lasted a long while and
was great fun. 5. ‘There is no such thing as ___ free lunch’ is used
for saying that people cannot get something good without working hard or giving something in exchange. 6. They had ___ benefit
dinner to raise money for the hospital. 7. No Forsyte has given ___
dinner without providing a saddle of mutton. 8. Eva had been especially silent during ___ dinner. 9. As soon as she was dressed, she
went into the library and sat down to ___ light French breakfast.
10. I’m going to find a place for ___ lunch. 11. He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned over his letters. They contained the
usual collections of cards, invitations to ___ dinner, tickets for private views, programmes of charity concerts, and the like. 12. Carrie had prepared ___ good dinner at the flat, but after his ride up,
Hurstwood was in a solemn and reflective mood.
– 83 –
g) names of diseases:
1. The cold water sent ___ spasm through the base of his spine,
the stick fell from his hands. 2. She got kind of quite, as if she had
___ headache. 3. I got ___ pneumonia making a picture last January and I’ve been recuperating. 4. ‘I was called at my home,’ Barlett said, ‘and Dr. Cymbalist told me he suspected ___ perforated
ulcer.’ 5. I had heard of a man who has ___ slight fungus growth
on his thumb and had become obsessed with the idea that it was
___ cancer. 6. She clung to him, face distorted and crimson. ___
cough rocked her. 7. After ___ typhoid she was just skin and
bone. 8. Yes, you had found ___ diphtheria and ___ typhoid,
and, if I am right, there were some outstanding, like ___ scarlet
fever and ___ smallpox, that you called ___ ultramicroscopia,
and which you were still hunting for, and others that you didn’t
even suspect. 9. It probably accounts for some of ___ flue you
spoke of, but that is not too serious in itself. 10. The morning after the bridge party Mrs. Van Hopper woke with ___ sore throat
and ___ temperature of a hundred and two. 11. The trainer took
a fussy interest in him when he came up with ___ small bruise
on his knee. 12. It looks precisely the place to provoke rather than
cure ___ nervous breakdown. 13. Case was a forty-year old man
admitted for ___ appendicitis. 14. At the beginning of the year
Cooper went down with ___ fever.
h) school, college, university, prison, jail, church, bed, town, etc.
1. He fell ill on Friday and was admitted to ___ hospital the
next day. 2. Six months in ___ bed no longer seemed a long time
when Mrs. Carlton beside her had been in ___ bed for eighteen
months. 3. It’s worse than ___ prison, because in ___ prison at
least you are all criminals, but here only we three have the stigma
on us, and in ___ prison you can at least have a cell to yourself.
– 84 –
4. Paulette, when this is over, I’m going to treat you to the best
lunch in ___ town. 5. Lorna was glad that she had gone to ___
secondary school because it had been only constructed a year before. She was 17 years of age and had left ___ school two years
before. 6. On the morning of the third day of rain we decided
to go down into ___ town. 7. Well, amigo, don’t you think it’s
time you were in ___ comfortable bed? 8. I’ve been weak and I
have permitted your father to drive me from ___ church. 9. Mel
Bakersfeld was in ___ after he has spent a few hours in the truck
snowbound on one of the runways. 10. Floyd was surprised to
hear Paul’s daughter was doing well at ___ school while his son
was only somewhere down at the chart. 11. Jan lay back in ___
narrow hospital bed and tried to adjust herself to her narrow surroundings. 12. He was usually caustic in his comments on those
who used ___ church only for marrying, or burying. 13. He held
himself very erect, as though he were still in ___ Air Cadets’
School. 14. So they were all seated at ___ table, Rudolph self
consciously the focus of the occasion wearing a collar and tie, and
sitting very erect, like a cadet at ___ table at West Point. 15. I
had know Jan slightly in ___ high school. 16. I wanted to look
in at ___ hospital before it was too late for visitors. 17. ___ bed
was empty and there was no one in the room. 18. She has been at
___ college for more than a year, when will she be through? 19. _
__ school was in a residential part of ___ town, to the North
and East of the business centre. 20. I headed south, leaving ___
town, where, I realized now, I had been happy for more than five
years. 21. She has never been inside of ___ church. 22. Jan said
to herself: ‘No one will ever make me go into ___ hospital like
this again.’ 23. When he was dressed, he sat down on ___ bed
and waited for his wife. 24. There is ___ hospital just a couple
of streets away. 25. The day came when I had to go back to ___
– 85 –
school. 26. There was never enough money around the house.
Therefore he did not go to ___ college.
Exercise 8. Insert an appropriate article in its generic function.
1. ___ heart understands when it is confronted with contrasts.
2. For centuries very little was known about ___ American lobster. 3. From a social standpoint ___ man of science does not exist. 4. That is because ___ public isn’t interested in ___ theatre.
5. A fighter is supposed to get beaten up, isn’t he? 6. ___ doctor
oughtn’t to sin against his professional etiquette. 7. So long, also,
will the atmosphere of this realm work its desperate results in the
soul of ___ man. 8. Who but ___ English would fill the Covent
Garden to listen to an aged prima donna without a voice? 9. I always think it a pity that fashion having decided that the doings of
___ aristocracy are no longer a proper subject for serious fiction.
10. In the light of the world’s attitude toward ___ woman and
her duties the nature of Carrie’s mental state deserves consideration. 11. These feel as much as ___ poet though they have not
the same power of expression. 12. He had the feeling that I have
noticed in some Americans that America is a difficult and even
dangerous place in which ___ European cannot safely be left to
find his way about by himself. 13. How clever of you to rout ___
helpless and ___ widow and ___ orphan and ___ ignorant! But
if you must steal, Scarlett, why not steal from ___ rich and strong
instead of ___ poor and weak? 14. The trouble is, once the weeds
are gone, biologists don’t know what will happen or where ___
carp will migrate. 15. Founded by ___ French, ruled for a few
decades by ___ Spanish and finely fought by ___ Americans, it’s
a city of contrasts. 16. What absurd fellows you are both of you! I
wonder who it was defined ___ man a rational animal. 17. When
– 86 –
___ Tories say ___ class struggle no longer exists they hope to
persuade ___ workers not to fight for their just demands. 18. She
came out of her sleep, the cough tearing her again and again till it
seemed impossible that ___ human body could endure so much.
19. There is no firm evidence for either of these explanations for
the end of ___ dinosaur. 20. I reflected that there must be a bowl
of goose grease on most farms; it was the all-purpose lubricant
and liniment for ___ man and ___ beast. 21. I dwelt in pleasure as ___ fish lives in water. 22. He had not imagined that ___
woman would dare to speak so to ___ man.
Exercise 9. Explain the use of articles in the following proverbs.
1. A bean in liberty is better than a comfit in prison. 2. Absence
makes the heart grow fonder. 3. The acorn never falls far from the
tree. 4. Actions speak louder than words. 5. Advice most needed
is least heeded. 6. After dinner sit a while, after supper walk a
mile. 7. Bad news travels fast. 8. A bad penny always turns up.
9. A bad workman blames his tools. 10. Beggars can’t be choosers. 11. A bellyful is one of meat, drink, or sorrow. 12. One bitten by a snake for a snap dreads a rope for a decade. 13. The calm
(comes) before the storm. 14. The coat makes the man. 15. A coin
of gold is delighting in a bag of silver coins. 16. The cure is worse
than the disease. 17. Don’t cry over spilt milk. 18. Don’t judge a
man by the size of his hat, but by the angle of his tilt. 19. Don’t
worry, God has a plan. 20. A dull pencil is greater than the sharpest memory. 21. The English are a nation of shopkeepers. 22. An
Englishman’s home is his castle. 23. Even a dog can make it to
the top when there’s a flood. 24. An eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth. 25. Failure is the first step to success. 26. Give a man a
fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed
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him for a lifetime. 27. A good beginning makes for a good ending. 28. If you want breakfast in bed, sleep in the kitchen. 29. A
journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. 30. Man is
truly himself when he’s alone. 31. Only the good die young. 32. A
paragraph should be like a lady’s skirt: long enough to cover the
essentials but short enough to keep it interesting. 33. The proof
of the pudding is in the eating. 34. In the land of the blind, the
one-eyed man is king.
Exercise 10. Insert appropriate articles in the following proverbs
and explain their functions.
1. ___ ability can take you to ___ top, but it takes ___ character
to keep you there. 2. All’s fair in ___ love and ___ war. 3. ___ bad
settlement is better than ___ good lawsuit. 4. Before criticizing
___ man, walk ___mile in his shoes. 5. Barking up ___ wrong
tree. 6. ___ best is yet to come. 7. ___ blow with ___word strikes
deeper than ___ blow with ___ sword. 8. ___ big tree attracts
___ woodsman’s axe. 9. ___ bird in ___ hand is worth two in ___
bush. 10. ___ bitter pills may have ___ blessed effects. 11. ___
chain is no stronger than its weakest link. 12. ___ coward dies
___ thousand times before his death. ___ valiant never taste of
___ death but once. 13. ___ difference between ___ man and
___ cat or ___ dog is that only ___ man can write ___ names
of ___ cat and ___ dog. 14. Don’t put the cart before the horse.
15. Don’t try to teach ___ pig to sing. 16. ___distance makes
___ heart grow fonder. 17. ___doctors make ___ worst patients.
18. ___doubt is ___ beginning, not ___ end, of wisdom. 19. ___
early bird catches ___ worm. But ___ second mouse gets ___
cheese. 20. ___effort is important, but knowing where to make
___ effort makes all ___difference! 21. ___ empty vessel makes
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___ most noise. 22. Even ___ broken clock is right twice ___
day. 23. ___ exception proves ___ rule. 24. For want of ___nail
___ shoe is lost, for want of ___ shoe ___ horse is lost, for want
of ___ horse ___ rider is lost. 25. Fortune favours ___brave.
26. ___knowledge is ___ best charity. 27. To learn ___ lesson is
___ far better reward than to receive ___ gift. 28. Give ___ man
____ match, he shall be warm for ____ moment. 29. Teach ___
man to light ___ fire and he shall be warm for ___rest of his life.
30. ____God cures and ___physician takes ___ fee. 31. ___
good enemy is ___ better person than ___ false friend. 32. ___
grass is always greener on ___ other side... 33. ___ half truth is
___ whole lie. 34. It’s better to tell ___ truth and be rejected,
than to tell ___ lie and get accepted. 35. ___ longest mile is ___
last mile home. 36. ___ man wasn’t born to suffer but to carry on.
37. ___ only stupid question is ___ one that is not asked. 38. ___
closed mouth catches no flies. 39. ___ poor man does not learn
from his mistakes. ___good man does learn from his mistakes.
___ wise man learns from ___ mistakes of others. 40. Try not
to become ___ man of success but ___ man of value. 41. There’s
no peace for ___wicked. 42. ___ unasked question is ___ most
futile thing in the world. 43. We must take ___ bad with ___
good. 44. When in Rome, do as ___ Romans do. 45. ___ whole
is greater than its parts. 46. ___ woman is like ___ cup of tea;
you’ll never know how strong she is until she boils.
Exercise 11. Explain the use of articles in the following contextual passages.
1) As it was Saturday night, not many people were about the Meal
market – the old, commercial part of Hedleston, a network of
narrow wynds and passages converging on Victoria Square where
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Page’s offices and printing plant occupied part of an Adam terrace
that betrayed its eighteenth-century origin in a patina of ancient
smoke and weather. Free of traffic, its cobbled streets for once so
muted that his footsteps echoed down the alleyway behind him,
the ancient quarter seemed to Henry, more than ever at this hour,
the steady heart of this royal Northumbrian borough where for
five generations his family had lived and worked. Instinctively he
drew a deep breath of the moist and slightly acrid air.
2) The garden in which, with enjoyment, pottering around he
spent most of his spare moments, was beginning to show encouraging signs of spring. Taking the front steps rather slowly, he felt
for his latchkey. In the hall, as he hung up his coat, he listened
for a moment and was reassured by the absence of sounds of social activities. He went into the dining room, where his place had
been left set, and, feeling along the carpet with his foot, pressed
the bell. Presently a tall bony woman with a scoured complexion and red, chapped hands, dressed severely in black, brought in
some sliced mutton, potatoes, and cabbage, standing, her head a
little to one side, before remarking with a slight elevation of the
corner of her mouth and the tart understatement that for twenty
years had been the feature of her service.
3) As a rule, Henry never discussed the affairs of the paper at
home. In the early days of his marriage he had done so with the
weirdest consequences, but this evening he felt a need to confide
in someone. He looked across at Alice, spare and stylish in figure,
with the fair, slightly freckled complexion, -faded yet still good
that goes with sand-coloured hair. Her vague blue eyes, set in a
narrow head under brows arched as though in permanent surprise, were directed towards him with questioning interest, the
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look of a woman who, by an effort, maintains a qualified forbearance towards her husband despite the trials and dissapointments,
which, during twenty years of marriage, she is convinced he has
imposed on her.
4) Page was annoyed with himself. Surely experience should have
taught him the futility of opening his heart to alice. Yet some
unfulfilled need of his nature drove him to it, and always with
the same result, a lack of understanding and accord, so that he
emerged unsatisfied and chagrined, like a bather, who thinking
to refresh himself in cool water, finds that he has plunged into a
shallow pond. At last he said, rather shortly:
‘Are you going to Sleedon tomorrow?’
‘Of course… it’s the end of the month. Do you want to come?’
She shook her head. He had known that she would refuse. David’s marriage had not satisfied her; there remained a smarting
sense of disappointment, the aftermath of frustrating ambition,
at what she referred to privately as the ‘disaster’. It was one of
her good qualities that she had wanted the best for her children,
and Cora, who, in Henry’s view, was most things that a woman
should be, did not fulfil those exacting requirements which she
looked for in the wife of her son. The shock of the first meeting,
when David appeared, unexpectedly, with a strange young woman, tall, pale, and a little frightened, on his arm, had passed, but
there still were difficulties and objections – the word ‘common’,
in particular, although never spoken, seemed held back only by an
effort that demanded all of Alice’s ladylike restraint.
5) For perhaps five minutes Henry drove ahead through the liquid moonlight which turned the long, straight country road into
a river of milk, then all at once he braked and drew up with a jerk
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that stopped the engine.The thought of Cora, of her look, sad and
lingering, as she stood alone by the gate, pierced him to the heart.
Why had he left her? He had done not enough to help her. A wild
impulse took hold of him to turn the car and go back to comfort
her. But no, no, that was impossible, beyond the bounds of reason, an action that would be misunderstood, which must surely
compromise her. His throat turned tight and dry as he fought
against the need to be with her again, if only to exchange a single
word. Then he sighed again and, after a long and heavy pause,
started up the engine, pushed the lever into gear, and continued
on his way to Hedleston.
6) My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle West city for three generations. The Carraways are something
of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the
Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my
grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day. I never saw this great-uncle,
but I’m supposed to look like him – with special reference to the
rather hard boiled painting that hangs in father’s office. I graduated from New Haven in 19115, just a quarter of a century after
my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic
migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so
thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm
centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe – so I decided to go East and learn the
bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I
supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and
uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me,
and finally said, ‘Why – ye-es,’ with very grave, hesitant faces.
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Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I
came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.
7) The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was
a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and
friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that
we take a house together in a commuting town it sounded like a
great idea. He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered
him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a
dog – at least I had him for a few days until he ran away – and an
old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked
breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.
8) He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a
sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and
a superciliuos manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established
dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always
leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of
his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body –
he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top
lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscles shifting when
his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of
enormous leverage – a cruel body.
9) Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front
of wayside garages (…) and when I reached my estate at West Egg
I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned
grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud,
bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent or– 93 –
gan sounds as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of
life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight,
and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone – fifty
feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbour’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets
regarding the silver pepper of the stars.
10)  One morning, when the hands were mustered for the field,
Tom noticed, with surprise, a new comer among them, whose
appearance excited his attention. It was a woman, tall and slenderly formed, with remarkably delicate hands and feet, and
dressed in neat and respectable garments. By the appearance of
her face, she might have been between thirty-five and forty; and
it was a face that, once seen, could never be forgotten, – one of
those that, at a glance, seem to convey to us an idea of a wild,
painful, and romantic history. Her forehead was high, and her
eyebrows marked with beautiful clearness. Her straight, wellformed nose, her finely-cut mouth, and the graceful contour of
her head and neck, showed that she must once have been beautiful; but her face was deeply wrinkled with lines of pain, and
of proud and bitter endurance. Her complexion was sallow and
unhealthy, her cheeks thin, her features sharp, and her whole
form emaciated. But her eye was the most remarkable feature, –
so large, so heavily black, overshadowed by long lashes of equal
darkness, and so wildly, mournfully despairing. There was a
fierce pride and defiance in every line of her face, in every curve
of the flexible lip, in every motion of her body; but in her eye was
a deep, settled night of anguish, – an expression so hopeless and
unchanging as to contrast fearfully with the scorn and pride expressed by her whole demeanour.
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Exercise 12. Insert the appropriate article.
A) 1. ___ zoo’s main feature is ___ jungle setting under ___
glass dome. 2. At 76, ___ Queen Elizabeth II is ___ oldest monarch to celebrate __ Golden Jubilee. 3. Jamal is ___ local businessman trying to get his goods to ___ market. He’s got all ___
gadgets but there are times when ___ technology’s just not
enough. 4. ___ University of Oxford is to offer ___ extra grants
to ___ students from ___ poorer backgrounds, thanks to ___
multimillionaire, called ___ Kevin Malone, who made his fortune in ___ United States. ___last year, he saw ___ report for
___ Ten O’clock News about ___ University’s bursary scheme,
and he decided he wanted to help. ___ Mike Baker takes up ___
story. 5. ___ General David Petraeus, who has led ___ coalition
forces in ___ Iraq, was handed ___ Afghan job. 6. He will be __
_ first senior member of ___ president’s economic team to leave
___ office. 7. Nikki Haley won ___ Republican nomination for
___ governor in ___ South Carolina’s primary run-offs. 8. ___
Republicans also chose Tim Scott as their congressional candidate in ___ district that includes Charleston. 9. His opponent in
___ run-off was Paul Thurmond, ___ son of ___ late Senator
Strom Thurmond, once ___ prominent segregationist. 10. China
surprised markets by ending ___ peg of ___ yuan to ___ dollar,
___ policy that was reintroduced in July 2008 during ___ financial crisis. ___ yuan’s movement is still restricted to ___ rise or
fall of no more than 0.5% against ___ dollar in ___ single day –
it appreciated modestly soon after ___ announcement. 11. There
was ___ concert to mark ___ 10th anniversary of ___ Mandela’s
release from ___ jail. 12. ___ most senior type of ___ doctor in
___ hospital is called ___ consultant. 13. In ___ mountains of
___ northern Albania, ___ vengeance was long taken according
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to ___ Kanun, ___ code drawn up in ___ medieval times. 14. ___
code of ___ Lek Dugajine is ___ sole reason why ___ blood
feuds still claim so many lives in ___ Albania today. 15. ___ Albanian Government is trying to end ___ centuries old tradition,
which still blights ___ lives of ___ thousands. It’s called ___
blood feud, and it allows ___ families of ___ murder victims to
revenge on ___ killer’s family. ___ practice was revived after ___
fall of ___ Communists, but ___ present government is trying to
stamp it out. 16. Tackling ___ youth crime has become ___ top
priority for ___ Government. But it has to be careful that ___
radical measures will work. 17. ‘___ Judge had better wake up on
___ right side of ___ bed in ___ morning of ___ trial,’ ___
Hazen said, ‘or ___ psychiatrist better find put Romero is ___
most disturbed kid in ___ Connecticut and at ___ same time as
harmless as ___ pussycat.’ 18. Strand remembered ___ grotesque scene ___ first night at ___ Hamptons when ___ Hazen
had arrived drunk late at ___ night and snarled against his profession, ___ world. 19. He wondered how ___ man ordinarily so
intelligent could have such ___ misconception about himself. 20.
His throat felt dry and there was ___ peculiar hot throb in his
chest. He made himself ___ whiskey and ___ water and took ___
first sip before he went back into ___ living room and picked up
___ letters. 21. One, he saw from ___ envelope, was from Caroline, another from Leslie, and ___ third had no name or return
address. 22. She had also received ___ postcard that I did in ___
few hours in ___ Mougins. Linda says she didn’t believe anyone
could do something new with ___ Riviera as ___ subject. 23. To
tell ___ truth, it’s only ___ few days, and it’s not like ___ Gauguin leaving his family to paint in ___ South Seas, is it? 24. I
know she’s in ___ Paris. She sent me ___ postcard, ___Mona
Lisa, at ___Louvre. 25. When he was introduced to ___ Joan
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Dyer in her all-white apartment twenty-two stories high, with ___
view of ___East River, Strand thought she looked like ___ lady
who could cope with anything including ___fire and ___ finance.
26. I showed ___ arrowhead to ___Rachel, whose mother is ___
archaeologist. 27. Merdine, who was born in ___boxcar somewhere in ___Arkansas, gets homesick every time she hears ___
cry of ___train whistle. The space shuttle is a manned rocket
that can be flown back to earth and reused. 28. ___Henry Aaron, who played ___baseball with ___Braves for 20 years, was
voted into ___Hall of Fame in 1982. 29. ___oxygen – which is
colorless, tasteless, and odourless – is ___ chief life-supporting
element of all plant and animal life. 30. ___Bushido, which is ___
traditional code of ___honor of ___samurai, is based on ___
principles of ___simplicity, ___honesty, ___courage, and ___
justice. 31. ___Merdine danced on ___ roof of her trailer during
___thunderstorm that flooded ___county ___last night.
32. Every portrait that is painted with ___ feeling is ___ portrait
of ___ artist, not of ___ sitter. 33. Can ___ fox become ___
man’s best friend? 34. There was ___ softness in ___ air which
speaks with ___ infinite delicacy of feeling to ___ flesh as well as
to ___ soul. 35. ___ Belgian found ___ monkey and asked ___
gendarme what he should do with it. ___ gendarme told him to
take ___ animal to ___ zoo. ___ next day, ___ gendarme saw
___ man walking along holding hands with ___ monkey. “Look,”
said ___ gendarme, “I thought I told you to take ___ monkey to
___ zoo.” “Yes,” said ___ Belgian, “Yes. We went to ___ zoo yesterday. Today we’re going to ___ cinema.” 36. I felt ___ enormous anxiety about ___ business matters I had left behind in ___
Brazil. 37. ___ gate led onto ___ immense courtyard, around
which were situated ___ medieval houses with ___ balconies.
38. ___ newspaper has ___ obligation to seek out and tell ___
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truth. There are situations, however, when ___ newspaper must
determine whether ___ public’s safety is jeopardized by knowing
___truth. 39. Her body was racked with ___ grief. It was ___
grief he had never felt before. 40. ___ injustice was widespread
within ___ judicial system itself. He implored ___ judge to correct ___ injustice. 41. In ____ spring, we like to clean ___ house.
42. ___ Appendicitis nearly killed him. 43. They are of ___ age.
44. Apart from ___ very rich and ___ very young, ___ most
people’s day-to-day experience of shopping bears little resemblance to this image of mindless hedonism. 45. ___ moon was
high and magnificent. 46. ___ sky overhead throbbed and pulsed
with ___ light. ___ glow sank quickly off ___ field; ___ earth
and ___ hedges smoked ___ dusk. 47. She went indoors, wondering if ___ things were never going to alter. 48. She could always recall in detail ___ September Sunday afternoon, when
they had sat under ___ vine at ___back of her father’s house. 49.
She had ___ curious, receptive mind which found much pleasure
and amusement in listening to ___ other folk. 50. ___ next
Christmas they were married. 51. This was ___new tract of life
suddenly opened before her. She realized ___ life of ___ miners,
hundreds of them toiling below ___ earth and coming up at ___
evening. 52. He had spent ___ perfect afternoon with his mother. They arrived home in ___ mellow evening, happy and glowing, and tired. In ___ morning he filled in ___ form for his season ticket and took it to ___ station. When he got back, his
mother was just beginning to wash ___ floor. He crouched up on
___ sofa. 53. Now, Jim, walk like ___ old Uncle Cudjoe, when he
has ___ rheumatism. 54. ‘Now, Jim,’ said his master, “show us
how ___old Elder Robbins leads ___ psalm”. 55. ___ first morning of her regency, ___ Miss Ophelia was up at four o’clock. 56. ___
Old Dinah, ___ head cook and principal of all rule and authority
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in ___ kitchen department, was filled with ___ wrath at what
she considered ___ invasion of ___ privilege. 57. ___ Miss Ophelia commenced opening ___ set of drawers. 58. He was ___ expert
and efficient workman in whatever he undertook. 59. ___ person
who had been called ___ Misse Cassy now came forward, and,
with ___ haughty, negligent air, delivered her basket. As she delivered it, Legree looked in her eyes with ___ sneering yet inquiring glance. 60. It was ___ superb day. ___ blue waves of ___
Lake Erie danced, rippling and sparkling, in ___ sunlight. ___
fresh breeze blew from ___ shore, and ___ lordly boat ploughed
her way right gallantly onward. 61. Oh, what ___ untold world
there is in one human heart!
B) 1. ___ martyr, when faced even by ___ death of bodily anguish and horror, finds in ___ very terror of his doom ___ strong
stimulant and tonic. There is ___ vivid excitement, ___ thrill
and ___ fervour, which may carry through any crisis of suffering
that is ___ birth-hour of ___ eternal glory and rest. 2. Tom stood
___ face to ___ face with his persecutor. 3. When ___ heavy
weight presses ___ soul to ___ lowest level at which ___ endurance is possible, there is ___ instant and desperate effort of every
physical and moral nerve to throw off ___ weight; and hence ___
heaviest anguish often precedes ___ return tide of ___ joy and
courage. 4. It was ___ superb moonlight night, and ___ shadows
of ___ graceful China trees lay minutely pencilled on ___ turf
below, and there was that transparent stillness in ___air which it
seems almost unholy to disturb. 5. Tom remarked, as ___ light of
___ moon fell upon Cassy’s large, black eyes, that there was ___
wild and peculiar glare in them, unlike their wonted fixed despair. 6. Tom was already lost among ___ distant swamps of ___
Red river. 7. During ___ late and sumptuous tea with eggs to it,
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___ cream and ___ jam, and ____ thin, fresh cakes touched
with saffron, Garton descanted on ___ Celts. 8. It was ___ Saturday, so they were early home from ___ school. 9. ___ dusk
dropped down without his noticing. 10. ___ moon had just risen,
very golden, over the hill, and like ___ bright, powerful, watching
spirit peered through ___ bars of ___ ash tree’s half-naked
boughs. 11. At ___ station he wrote ___ second telegram to ___
farm, and then tore it up. 12. Then he saw ___ Hallidays coming
through ___ gate of ___ Crescent. 13. He reached down in his
hip pocket and took out ___ fat purse. It was filled with ___ slips
of paper, some mileage books, ___ roll of greenbacks. It impressed her deeply. Such ___ purse had never been carried by any
one attentive to her. Indeed, ___ experienced traveller, ___ brisk
man of ___ world, had never come within such close range before. ___ purse, ___ shiny tan shoes, ___ smart new suit, and ___
air with which he did things, built up for her ___ dim world of
fortune, of which he was __ centre. It disposed her pleasantly toward all he might do. 14. ___ Sister Carrie gazed out of ___
window. 15. ‘This is ___ Chicago River,’ and he pointed to ___
little muddy creek. 16. At that time ___ department store was in
its earliest form of successful operation, and there were not many.
___ first three in ___United States, established about 1884,
were in ___ Chicago. Carrie was familiar with ___ names of several through ___ advertisements in ___ ‘Daily News’, and now
proceeded to seek them. 17. At this decision her heart sank, until
she was ___ old Carrie of distress. 18. Ah, money, money, money! What ___ thing it was to have. 19. What ___ coward she
was, she thought to herself. 20. Without much thinking, she
reached ___ Dearborn Street. 21. ___ National Geographic Society has been exploring ___ world for more than 120 years,
working with ___ world-class explorers, photographers, cartog– 100 –
raphers and journalists, who share our mission to inspire people
to care about ___ planet. 22. He is taking ___ close look at ___
most populous domesticated animal on ___ Earth: ___ chicken.
Their ancestors, ___ red jungle fowl, roamed freely in ___ jungles of ___ India, ___ Nepal and ___ other parts of ___ South
and Southeast Asia. 23. ___ ship sturgeon is near extinction, and
it’s already gone from ___ Aral Sea, ___ water diversion for cotton farming reduced what was once ___ world’s fourth largest
lake to ___ dust bowl. 24. He has seen ___ kung fu banned by
___ Japanese occupiers, discouraged by Mao’s Red Guards, and
resurrected as ___ cultural treasure in ___ new China. 25. The
sought ___ shelter from ___ snow shower in ___ Shaolin complex, lavishly rebuilt in recent years. 26. When he visited ___
Yangtze River in 2008, he saw that ___ Chinese paddlefish is on
___ verge of extinction – maybe it’s even gone. 27. ___ study by
___ Met Office, however, challenged ___ assumption that severe
warming will only be ___ problem for ___ future generations,
saying that, if unchecked, ___ global warming could bring ___
average temperature rise to 4ºC by 2055. Should this occur, ___
deforestation and ___ fires could destroy over 80% of ___ Amazon rainforest by ___ end of ___ century; in ___ southern China and ___ northern India ___ monsoon rains which supply ___
water for drinking and for crops could cease. 28. In ___ Figure 1
the graph shows ___ changing rate of ___ global oil discovery
since ___ 1930s. 29. ___ UN, particularly ___ UNESCO, has
played ___ significant role in putting ___ Education for Sustainable Development on ___ international agenda; 2005 – 2014 has
been designated as ___ UN ‘Decade for Education for Sustainable Development’ (___ DESD). ___ schools have been identified by ___ policy makers at all levels, both within ___ UK and
internationally, as crucial ‘agents for change’ towards ___ more
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sustainable future. 30. However, ___ coalition government has
withdrawn ___ support for ___ Sustainable Schools strategy,
and in the course of ___ few short weeks ___ educational climate for SD (Sustainable Development) has cooled considerable.
31. ___ study of geography stimulates ___ interest in ___ sense
of wonder about places. It helps young people make ___ sense of
___ complex and dynamically changing world. It builds on ___
pupils’ own experiences to investigate ___ places at all scales,
from ___ personal to ___ global. 32. ___ Geographical Association’s manifesto ‘___ Different View’ is designed to remind us
why we are ___ geography teachers. With ___ geography we
can surely excite ___ commitment and ___ achievement. 33.
Meet one of ___ most unique looking whales from ___ marine
mammal family - ___ beluga. 34. At ___ Arctic Cove you can
touch and feed these friendly white whales. Underwater viewing
lets you get ___ close look at what’s happening beneath ___
waves. 35. After ___ ticket booths have closed, ___ park activities continue until ___ nightfall. ___ operating schedule is subject to change. ___ inclement weather may result in ___ change
in ___ operation schedule. 36. Visit deep space for 18 holes of ___
miniature golf! ___ Galaxy Golf offers ___ exciting glow-inthe-dark adventure, set within ___ comfortable climate-controlled environment! 37. Discover ___ miniature world, made with
over ___ million toy bricks. ___ amazing world of electric bricks,
buildings, planes, boats, automobiles and people, all made of ___
bricks! 38. Be among ___ first to step ___ foot in this mirrored
maze of ___ crystal caves. Don’t get lost in ___ infinite passageways. 39. Whirlpool Get Boat Tours is ___ exhilarating white
water experience on ___ Niagara River with ___ awe-inspiring
scenery and Class Five Rapids. 40. ___ indoor skydiving completely immerses visitors in ___ world of ___ high adventure
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skydiving, without ever having to pack ___ parachute, pull ___
ripcord or jump out of ___ perfectly good airplane. Anyone can
do it from ___ age of 7 years to 77 or more. 41. ___ Dr. Hall’s
interest in ___ man’s use of ___ space developed in ___ early
nineteen fifties when he was ___ Director of ___ Point Four
training programme at ___ Foreign Service Institute. In talking
with ___ Americans who had lived overseas, he found that many
of them had been highly distressed by ___ cultural differences so
subtle and so basic that their effects were felt for ___ most part at
___ preconscious level. Such ___ distress is usually referred to
as ___ culture shock. 42. ___ relative position ___ individual
chooses can be ___ status signal. ___ group leader, for example,
automatically gravitates to ___ end chair at ___ rectangular table. And it seems that ___ average jury, meeting to pick ___ foreman and seated around ___ rectangular table, is most apt to elect
one of ___ two individuals who occupy ___ end chairs; furthermore, ___ individuals who choose to sit in those chairs in ___
first place are generally people with a lot of social status, who proceed to take leading roles in ___ discussion. 43. When ___
number of people cluster together in ___ conversational knot –
at ___ party, for example, or outdoors on ___ college campus –
each individual expresses his position in ___ group by where he
stands. By choosing ___ distance, he signals how intimate he
wants to be; by choosing ___ location, such as ___ head spot, he
can signal what kind of ___ role he hopes to play. When ___
group settles into ___ particular configuration, when all ___
shifting around stops, it’s ___ sign that non-verbal negotiations
are over. All concerned have arrived at ___ general, if temporary,
agreement on ___ pecking order and ___ level of intimacy that’s
to be maintained, and perhaps on ___ other relationships as well.
44. ___ three fishermen who drifted on ___ Pacific for four
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months told yesterday how they drank ___ shark’s blood to survive. ___ fishermen from Kiribati told their story through ___
interpreter in ___ American Samoa capital of Pago Pago after
being rescued by ___ ship Sakaria. When they were picked up
on ___ June 4 they had eaten ___ last of ___ one-metre shark
four days before and drunk all of its blood. 45. ___ Mr. D.W.
teaches in ___ English Department of ___ Yanbian University,
China. He specializes in ___ syllabus design and ___ learning
strategies. 46. ___ Ms E.P. teaches ___ methodology at ___
Opole Pedagogical University and ___ Teacher Training College. Her interests are ___ language awareness and ___ learner
autonomy. 47. ___ role-play activities can involve ___ written
text on which ___ role-play is based. It may involve ___ written
instructions to ___ role-players. ___ ‘Say it!’ activity combines
these features and serves as ___ simple introduction to __ role
play. 48. ___ Norman Conquest, ___ event of 1066 is ___ most
famous date in ___ English history, when ___ Normans defeated ___ English and took control of ___ England. William, ___
Duke of Normandy,landed with his army in ___ southeast England and defeated ___ English under ___ King Harold II at ___
Battle of Hastings. ___ King Harold was killed and William became ___ King William I of England. 49. ___ East Enders is ___
popular British soap opera on ___ BBC1. It is about ___ lives of
___ people who live in ___ Albert Square in ___ borough of
Walford, ___ imaginary place in ___ East End of London. Its
best-known families are ___ Fowlers and ___ Michels, who run
___ local pub, ___ Queen Vic. 50. ___ George Washington
Bridge is ___ large US suspension bridge across ___ Hudson
River from ___ Manhattan in ___ New York City to ___ Fort
Lee, ___ New Jersey. 51. ___ Lake Huron separates ___ US
state of Michigan and ___ Canadian province of Ontario. It is ___
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fourth largest lake in ___ world. 52. Religious conflicts continued throughout ___ 17th century, but in 1689 ___ Bill of Rights
laid down that only ___ Protestant could become ___ king. This
did not prevent ___ Jacobites trying to make ___ Catholic, James
Stuart, ___ king in 1715. 53. ___ Lowlands is ___ region of
Scotland, south and east of ___ Highlands, with ___ flat countryside and ___ large population.
Exercise 13. Insert appropriate articles in the following texts.
a) Not so long ago, many of us resisted separating ___ glass, cans,
and paper out of our garbage. What ___ hassle. Today, of course,
every second-grader knows that ___ world’s resources are limited and that recycling helps preserve them. We act locally, while
thinking globally. It’s time to bring ___ same consciousness to
health care as we face ___ growing medical crisis: ___ loss of antibiotic effectiveness against common bacterial illnesses. By personally refusing – or not demanding – antibiotics for viral illnesses they won’t cure, we can each take ___ step toward prolonging
overall antibiotic effectiveness.
Media reports have likely made you aware of this problem, but
they have neglected ___ implications. Your brother catches ___
cold that turns into ___ sinus infection. His doctor treats him
with antibiotics, but ___ bacteria are resistant to all of them. The
infection enters his bloodstream – a condition known as septicemia – and ___ few days later, your brother dies. (Septicemia
is what killed Muppets creator Jim Henson a few years ago.) Or
instead of ___ cold, he has ___ infected cut that won’t heal, or
any other common bacterial disease, such as ___ ear or prostate
infection.
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Far-fetched? It’s not. ___ antibiotics crisis is real. Consider
Streptococcus pneumoniae: this common bacterium often causes post-flu pneumonia. (Pneumonia and influenza combined are
___ country’s sixth leading cause of death, killing 82,500 Americans in 1996.) Before 1980, less than 1 percent of S. pneumoniae
samples showed any resistance to penicillin. As of last May, researchers at ___ Naval Medical Center in San Diego discovered
that 22 percent of S. pneumoniae samples were highly resistant to
it, with another 15 percent moderately so. And ___ most recent
statistics from ___ Sentry Antimicrobial Surveillance Program,
which monitors bacterial resistance at 70 medical centers in ___
U.S., Canada, Europe, and South America, show that 44 percent
of S. pneumoniae samples in the U.S. are highly resistant, and
worldwide, resistance is at ___ all-time high (55 percent).
Strains of S. pneumoniae are also now resistant to tetracycline, erythromycin, clindamycin, chloramphenicol, and several other antibiotics. And there’s a “plausible risk” that we’ll run out of options for
treating other types of pneumonia as well, according to infectious
disease expert Joshua Lederberg of Rockefeller University in New
York. ___ not-too-distant future promises ___ potential failure
of medicine’s ability to treat ___ broad range of bacterial infections – from urinary tract infections to meningitis to tuberculosis.
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a direct outgrowth of the
overuse of these drugs. In classic Darwinian fashion, ___ more
doctors prescribe antibiotics, ___ more likely it is for some lucky
bacterium blessed with ___ minor genetic variation to survive
antibiotic assault-and pass its resistance along to its offspring.
The solution is obvious: doctors should prescribe antibiotics only
as ___ last resort.
This strategy works. In ___ early 1990s, Finnish public health
authorities responded to rising bacterial resistance to erythro– 106 –
mycin by discouraging its use as a first-line treatment for certain infections. From 1991 to 1992, erythromycin consumption per capita dropped 43 percent. By 1996, bacterial resistance to ___ antibiotic had been cut almost in half. But American doctors are doing ___ spectacularly lousy job of keeping
their pens off their prescription pads, most notably by prescribing antibiotics for ___ common cold and other upper respiratory tract infections (URIs). Data from ___ National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey show that bronchitis and URIs
account for ___ third of ___ nation’s antibiotic prescriptions.
Antibiotics treat only bacterial infections and are completely powerless against viral illnesses. Every doctor knows this.
Yet, according to ___ recent study by Dr. Ralph Gonzalez,
___ assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, when adults consult physicians for URIs and ___ bronchitis that often follows them, more than half walk out with ___ prescription for
___ antibiotic. If doctors simply stopped prescribing antibiotics for conditions they know don’t respond to them, we’d instantly be well on our way to minimizing antibiotic resistance.
Why are doctors so ready to prescribe antibiotics? Physicians are
quick to blame ___ public. Patients, they say, demand antibiotics, and doctors are so terrified of malpractice suits they prescribe
them to keep their customers happy and their lawyers at bay.
There’s another side to ___ story: Doctors are trained that there’s _
__ pill for every ill (or there should be). All of their medical education
conspires to make ___ antibiotic prescription their knee-jerk reaction to any infection, which may or may not have ___ bacterial cause.
In addition, prescribing antibiotics is the doctors’ path of least
resistance. It’s easier than taking ___ time to explain that antibiotics are worthless against viral infections, and to recom– 107 –
mend rest, fluids, and vitamin C – or, God forbid, ___ herbal,
homeopathic, Chinese, or other complementary treatment.
Most medical practices schedule patients at 15-minute intervals. Rather than doing what they know is right for public
health, it’s much quicker for doctors to whip out the prescription pad and send people on their merry, albeit misinformed way.
In ___ better world, medical education would be less drug-oriented and ___ health care system would encourage doctors to
take ___ time to be effective health educators. But even in our
imperfect world, some basic health education can help prevent
frivolous antibiotic use from boomeranging.
Like our doctors, we Americans have been socialized into believing that antibiotics are miracle drugs that can cure just about
everything. They aren’t, and they don’t. We’ve also been trained
to think that colds and their lingering coughs should clear up in
___ few days. They usually don’t –even if you load up on cold
formulas that promise to make all symptoms magically vanish. A
study by University of Virginia professor of medicine Jack Gwaltney, one of ___ nation’s top cold researchers, shows that nearly
one-third of adults with colds are still coughing after 10 days.
Meanwhile, according to a recent survey by researchers at Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans, after just
five days of cold symptoms, 61 percent of adults are ready to head
for their doctors – and ask for unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions.
My fellow Americans, the next time you feel ___ cold coming on, mark your calendar. Unless you start coughing up
lots of green sputum or develop unusual symptoms – for example, a fever that does not respond to aspirin, acetaminophen (Tylenol), or ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) – think twice
about calling your doctor before two weeks have passed.
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What I do instead is, from ___ moment I feel the infection coming on, I drink lots of hot fluids, take 500 to 1,000 milligrams of
vitamin C four times a day, suck on ___ zinc lozenge every two
waking hours, and mix half a teaspoon of tincture of echinacea,
___ immune-boosting herb, into juice or tea three times a day.
Reliable studies show that these approaches reduce ___ severity
and duration of colds. If you develop ___ persistent cough at ___
tail end of your cold, keep taking vitamin C and try an over-thecounter cough suppressant containing dextromethorphan.
If we hope to preserve antibiotic effectiveness, it’s up to us, ___
public, to convince doctors to prescribe these drugs only when
they’re necessary. This from-the- bottom-up approach is nothing
new. Health consumers have taken the lead in showing doctors
___ value of fitness, nutrition, and alternative therapies. It’s time
we get serious about antibiotics. (from Mother Jones Magazine,
March/April 1998).
b) Soccer — or ___football (or foosball or futbol), as it is called
by ___ rest of ___ world outside ___ United States — is surely
___ most popular sport in the world. Every four years, the world
championship of soccer, ___ World Cup, is watched by literally
billions all over the world, beating out the United States professional football’s Superbowl by far. It is estimated that 1.5 billion
people watched the World Cup final between Italy and Brazil in
1994. And it is also ___ genuine world championship, involving
teams from many countries (as many as 172) and played in venues
all over ___ globe, unlike ___ much more parochial and misnamed
World Series in ___ American baseball (that doesn’t even involve
Japan or Cuba, two baseball hotbeds). But although ___ soccer has
become ___ important sport in ___ American sports scene, it will
never make inroads into ___ hearts and markets of ___American
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sports the way that football, basketball, hockey, baseball, and even
___ tennis and golf have done. There are many reasons for this.
Recently ___ New England Revolution beat ___Tampa Bay Mutiny in ___ game played during ___ horrid rainstorm. Nearly
5000 fans showed up, which shows that soccer is, indeed, popular
in the United States. However, the story of ___ game was buried
near ___ back of ___ newspaper’s sports section, and there was
certainly no television coverage. In fact, ___ biggest reason for
soccer’s failure as ___ mass appeal sport in the United States is
that it doesn’t conform easily to ___ demands of television.
Basketball succeeds enormously in ___ America because it regularly schedules what it calls “television time-outs” as well as the
time-outs that ___teams themselves call to re-group, not to
mention half-times and, on the professional level, quarter breaks.
Those time-outs in the action are ideally made for television commercials. And ___ television coverage is ___ lifeblood of ___
American sports. College basketball lives for ___ game scheduled on ___ CBS or ESPN (highly recruited high school players are more likely to go to ___ team that regularly gets ___
national television exposure), and we could even say that ___
television coverage has dictated ___ pace and feel of American
football. Anyone who has attended ___ live football game knows
how commercial time-outs slow the game and sometimes, at its
most exciting moments, disrupt ___ flow of events. No one raises
___ objection, however, because without ___ television, football
knows that it simply wouldn’t remain in ___ homes and hearts
of Americans. Also, without those advertising dollars, the teams
couldn’t afford ___ sky-high salaries of their high-priced superstars.
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REFERENCES
1. Alexander L.G. (1998) Longman English Grammar. London, Longman Ltd.
2. Biber D., Conrad S., Leech G. (2002) Student Grammar of Spoken and
Written English. London, Pearson Education Ltd.
3. Kobrina, N.A., Korneyeva, M.I., Osovskaya, K.A., Guzeyeva, K.A.
(2006) An English Grammar. Morphology. Syntax. St.Petersburgh,
Soyuz.
4. Krylova I.P., Gordon E.M. (2007) A Grammar of Present-Day English.
Moscow, KDU.
5. Parrott M. (2000) Grammar for English Language Teachers. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
6. Swan M. (1995) Practical English Usage. Oxford, Oxford University
Press.
7. Yule G. (2006) Oxford Practice Grammar Advanced. Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
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SOURCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
Cronin A.J. (1975) The Northern Light. Kiev.
Dreiser Th. (1968) Sister Carrie. Moscow.
Fitzgerald F. S. (1994) The Great Gatsby. Penguin Popular Classics.
Galsworthy J. The Apple Tree (available at: http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/13984/)
5. Galsworthy J. (1973) The Forsyte Saga. The Man of Property. Moscow.
6. Lawrence D.H. (1995) Sons and Lovers. Penguin Popular Classics.
7. Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (2007) Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
8. Mother Jones Magazine, March/April 1998.
9. Murakami H. (2004) Birthday Stories. London: Vintage Books.
10. National Geographic. March 2011.
11. Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English (2002). Oxford
University Press.
12.Oxford Guide to British and American Culture for Learners of English
(1999). Oxford University Press.
13. Southern A., Wollwork A. (2002) Culture and Society. BBC World.
14. Strother J.B. (1987) Kaleidoscope. Academic Readings for ESL Students.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
15. Attractions. Niagara Falls. Canada. (2008).
16. Teaching Geography (2011). Vol. 36, Number 1.
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– 113 –
Gerda Mazlaveckienė, Valerija Norušaitienė
Ma724
The English Article: Definiteness and Indefiniteness: Teaching Aid.
Vilnius: Vilniaus pedagoginio universiteto leidykla, 2011. 114 p.
ISBN 978-9955-20-645-3
Metodinė priemonė skiriama anglų filologijos bakalauro studijų
programos studentams, taip pat mokytojų perkvalifikavimo programų dalyviams, studijuojantiems apibrėžtumo ir neapibrėžtumo raišką anglų kalboje bei artikelių vartojimo ypatumus.
UDK 811.111‘367.632(075.8)
Redagavo autorės
Maketavo Donaldas Petrauskas
Viršelio autorė Dalia Raicevičiūtė
SL 605. 7,25 sp. l. Tir. 150 egz. Užsak. Nr. 011-104
Išleido ir spausdino VPU leidykla, T. Ševčenkos g. 31, LT-03111 Vilnius
Tel. +370 5 233 3593, el. p. [email protected]
www.leidykla.vpu.lt
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