Grammar: Word classes: Determiners: Referring to specific people, things, etc

Definite article (the)

Using the to point forwards: Student problems

Students often have problems when pointing forwards with the definite article the:

	adding the where it is not appropriate
	omitting the where it is required

Adding the where it is not appropriate

Students sometimes use the definite article the in noun groups with Pre-Modifiers or Post-Modifiers which do not uniquely identify the noun:

Dotty and Kitty are going on the tour to Shanghai next spring.
Dotty and Kitty are going on a tour to Shanghai next spring.

We can only use the here if the excursion has already been mentioned. If not, then the indefinite article a must be used instead because the Post-Modifier to Shanghai does not tell us which tour is meant.

Students also sometimes use the definite article the (or another definite determiner, eg this, that, those) before all nouns followed by a relative clause , whether or not the relative clause uniquely identifies the noun:

Miss Lee told the children only to eat the food that has been cooked.
Miss Lee told the children only to eat food that has been cooked.

Since Miss Lee is pointing generally to food that has been cooked rather than to specific food, the is not appropriate here and should be omitted. 

Omitting the where it is required

Students often omit the where a Pre-Modifier or Post-Modifier uniquely identifies the noun:

"Can you tell me something about [ ] history of Hong Kong?" asked Miss Lee.
"Can you tell me something about the history of Hong Kong?" asked Miss Lee.

In this example, the Post-Modifier of Hong Kong uniquely identifies history and the definite article the must therefore be used.

Note that the terms Pre-Modifier and Post-Modifier are written with initial capitals to remind us that they are functional terms.