Generally, definite articles are used to identify nouns that the audience already knows about. It's an article that gives a noun a definite meaning: a definite article. The word the is considered a definite article because it defines the meaning of a noun as one particular thing. Nouns (a person, place, thing, or idea) can be identified by two different types of articles in the English language: definite articles identify specific nouns, and indefinite articles identify nonspecific nouns. So what are 'articles' in the English language? Articles are words that identify nouns in order to demonstrate whether the noun is specific or nonspecific. While we might think of an article as a story that appears in a newspaper or website, in English grammar, articles are words that help specify nouns. So, if you were wondering, 'Is the a pronoun, preposition, or conjunction,' the answer is no: it's an article, adjective, and an adverb! Having said that, the is most commonly used as an article in the English language. In short, the word 'the' is an article that functions as both an adjective and an adverb, depending on how it's being used. However, 'the' can also sometimes function as an adverb in certain instances, too. Articles are considered a type of adjective, so 'the' is technically an adjective as well. (More on that a little later.)īut an article isn't one of the eight parts of speech. In the English language the word the is classified as an article, which is a word used to define a noun. Okay, let's get started learning about the word the! Provide a full list of other words that are classified as the same part of speech as the in the English language.Explain how to use the correctly in sentences, with examples.Answer the question, 'What part of speech is the?'.To help you learn exactly how the word the works in the English language, we're going to do the following in this article: When you start breaking it down, the English language is pretty complicated-especially if you're trying to learn it from scratch! One of the most important English words to understand is the.īut what part of speech is the word the, and when should it be used in a sentence? Is the word the a preposition? Is the a pronoun? Or is the word the considered a different part of speech?

What part of speech is the word this