[[image:EuropeArticleLanguages.png|thumb|300px|Articles in European languages legend: indefinite and definite articles legend: only definite articles legend: indefinite and postfixed definite articles legend: only postfixed definite articles legend: no articles]]

An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun, and may also specify the volume or numerical scope of that reference. The articles in the English language are the and a (the latter with variant form an). An article is sometimes called a noun marker, although this is generally considered to be an archaic term.

Articles are traditionally considered to form a separate part of speech. Linguists place them in the class of determiners.

Articles can have various functions:

• A definite article (English the) is used before singular and plural nouns that refer to a particular member of a group.

  The cat is on the red mat.

  A cat is a mammal.

  French: Voulez-vous du café ? ("Would you like some coffee?" or "Do you want coffee?")

  Cats love fish.

  Linguists interested in X-bar theory causally link zero articles to nouns lacking a determiner.

  Logic of definite articles

  In English, a definite article is mostly used to refer to an object or person that has been previously introduced. For example:

  At last they came to a piece of rising ground, from which they plainly distinguished, sleeping on a distant mountain, a mammoth bear.... Then they requested the eldest to try and slip the belt over the bear's head.

  — Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, appendix D

  In this example, a bear becomes the bear because a "mammoth bear" had been previously introduced into the narrative, and no other bear was involved in the story. Only previously introduced subjects, and unique subjects, where the speaker can assume that the audience is aware of the identity of the referent (The government has increased tax) typically take definite articles in English.

  By contrast, the indefinite article is used in situations where a new subject is being introduced, and the speaker assumes that the hearer is not yet familiar with the subject:

  There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.

  — A traditional nursery rhyme

  Reflecting its historical derivation from the number word one, the English indefinite article can only be used with singular count nouns. For mass nouns, or for plurals, adjectives or adjective phrases like some or a few substitute for it, or it is omitted. In English, pronouns, nouns already having another non-number determiner, and proper nouns usually do not use articles. Otherwise in English, unlike many other languages, singular count nouns take an article; either a, an, or the. Also in English word order, articles precede any adjectives that modify the applicable noun.