Apart from articles, the class of determiners includes amount words and qualifiers [some, any, much, many more, most, several, no, few, a little, a few, little, enough, all, each, every, both, either, neither]; Demonstratives [this, that, those, these]; Numerals [one, two, three etc first, second, fifth etc]; and a few others.
Determiners are used before nouns, like adjective, and sometimes more than one can be used. They can also be used as pronouns continued from last edition. Some and any confused.
Wrong: A loving father would not like to beat some of his children
Correct: A loving father would not like to beat any of his children. The sentence means that a loving father would like to beat none of his children. When none is the intended meaning, say not ... any instead of not ... some. Wrong use of any after ever words
Wrong: Whenever Aisha enters any market, she buys something.
Correct: Whenever Aisha enters a market, she buys something. It is not necessary to say any instead of a here, because the use of whenever by itself ensures that market is any market and not a particular market. Both and either confused Wrong: There is no sound coming out of both speakers.
Correct: There is no sound coming out of either speaker. Either is required because of the preceding no.
Wrong: He had a boil on the neck.
Correct: He had a boil on his neck. The is used instead of a possessive adjective when reference is made to human beings in general: for example; the most complex organ of a man’s body is the brain or his brain. It may be used also for a particular person when the person is referred to earlier in the sentence: When they opened him up, they found his stomach in a bad condition; the kidneys [or his kidneys] were also affected.
Here, the kidney’s is possible because it comes after his stomach. His and her confused Abdullah and Khadijah are brother and sister.
Wrong: Khadijah introduced me to Abdullah and said that he was his brother.
Correct: Khadijah introduced me to Abdullah and said that he was her brother. Here only her brother is correct, because we are speaking of the brother of Khadijah Possessives must refer to the possessor, not to the thing or person possessed.
This article was culled from the publications of Deen Communication Limited