French articles and determiners

In French, articles and determiners are required on almost every common noun, much more so than in English. They are inflected to agree in gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural) with the noun they determine, though most have only one plural form (for masculine and feminine). Many also often change pronunciation when the word that follows them begins with a vowel sound.

While articles are actually a subclass of determiners (and in traditional grammars most French determiners are in turn a subclass of adjectives), they are generally treated separately; thus, they are treated separately here as well.

French has three articles: a definite article, corresponding in many cases to English the; an indefinite article, corresponding to English a/an; and a partitive article, used roughly like some in English.

The French definite article derives from a Latin distal demonstrative, ille. It evolved from the Old French article system, which shared resemblance to modern English and acquired the marking of generic nouns. This practise was common by the 17th century, although it has been argued that this became widely used as early as in the 13th century. In French, the definite article is analogous to the English definite article the, although they are sometimes omitted in English. The French definite article can vary according to the gender (feminine or masculine) and number (singular or plural) of the noun. The definite article takes the following forms:

Like the, the French definite article is used with a noun referring to a specific item when both the speaker and the audience know what the item is. It is necessary in the following cases:

Unlike the, the French definite article is also used with mass nouns and plural nouns with generic interpretation, and with abstract nouns. For example:

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