FUNCTION WORDS

Function words (or grammatical words) are words that have little lexical meaning or have
ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express grammatical relationships with other words
within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker. Words that are not function
words are called content words (or lexical words): these include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and
most adverbs, although some adverbs are function words (e.g., then and why). Dictionaries
define the specific meanings of content words, but can only describe the general usages of
function words. By contrast, grammars describe the use of function words in detail, but treat
lexical words in general terms only.
Function words might be prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, grammatical
articles or particles, all of which belong to the group of closed-class words. Interjections are
sometimes considered function words but they belong to the group of open-class words. Function
words might or might not be inflected or might have affixes.
Function words belong to the closed class of words in grammar in that it is very uncommon to
have new function words created in the course of speech, whereas in the open class of words
(that is, nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs) new words may be added readily (such as slang
words, technical terms, and adoptions and adaptations of foreign words). See neologism.
Each function word either gives some grammatical information on other words in a sentence or
clause, and cannot be isolated from other words, or it may indicate the speaker's mental model as
to what is being said.
Grammatical words, as a class, can have distinct phonological properties from content words.
Grammatical words sometimes do not make full use of all the sounds in a language. For
example, in some of the Khoisan languages, most content words begin with clicks, but very few
function words do.[1] In English, only function words begin with voiced th- [] (see
Pronunciation of English th).

Preposition
In grammar, a preposition is a part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. For
example, in the sentence "The cat sleeps on the sofa", the word "on" is a preposition, introducing
the prepositional phrase "on the sofa". In English, the most used prepositions are "of", "to", "in",
"for", "with" and "on". Simply put, a preposition indicates a relation between things mentioned
in a sentence.
Linguists sometimes distinguish between a preposition, which precedes its phrase, a
postposition, which follows its phrase, and as a rare case a circumposition, which surrounds its
phrase. Taken together, these three parts of speech are called adpositions. In more technical
language, an adposition is an element that, prototypically, combines syntactically with a phrase
and indicates how that phrase should be interpreted in the surrounding context. Some linguists
use the word "preposition" instead of "adposition" for all three cases.[1]

In linguistics, adpositions are considered to be members of the syntactic category "P". "PPs",[2]
consisting of an adpositional head and its complement phrase, are used for a wide range of
syntactic and semantic functions, most commonly modification and complementation. The
following examples illustrate some uses of English prepositional phrases:

as a modifier to a verb
o sleep throughout the winter
o danced atop the tables for hours
as a modifier to a noun
o the weather in April
o cheeses from France with live bacteria
as the complement of a verb
o insist on staying home
o dispose of unwanted items
as the complement of a noun
o a thirst for revenge
o an amendment to the constitution
as the complement of an adjective or adverb
o attentive to their needs
o separately from its neighbors
as the complement of another preposition
o until after supper
o from beneath the bed

Adpositions perform many of the same functions as case markings, but adpositions are syntactic
elements, while case markings are morphological elements.

Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Lat: pronomen) is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun
(or noun phrase) with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. The replaced
phrase is called the antecedent of the pronoun.
For example, consider the sentence "Lisa gave the coat to Phil." All three nouns in the sentence
can be replaced by pronouns: "She gave it to him." If the coat, Lisa, and Phil have been
previously mentioned, the listener can deduce what the pronouns she, it and him refer to and
therefore understand the meaning of the sentence. However, if the sentence "She gave it to him"
is the first presentation of the idea, none of the pronouns have antecedents and each pronoun is
therefore ambiguous. Pronouns without antecedents are also called unprecursed pronouns.

Types of pronouns
Common types of pronouns found in the world's languages are as follows.

Personal pronouns stand in place of the names of people or things:

o Subjective pronouns are used when the person or thing is the subject of the
sentence or clause. English example: I like to eat chips, but she does not.
Second person formal and informal pronouns (T-V distinction). For
example, vous and tu in French. There is no distinction in modern English,
though Elizabethan English marked the distinction with "thou" (singular
informal) and "you" (plural or singular formal).
Inclusive and exclusive "we" pronouns indicate whether the audience is
included. There is no distinction in English.
Intensive pronouns re-emphasize a noun or pronoun that has already
been mentioned. English uses the same forms as for the reflexive
pronouns; for example: I did it myself (contrast reflexive use I did it to
myself).
o Objective pronouns are used when the person or thing is the object of the
sentence or clause. English example: John likes me but not her.
Direct and indirect object pronouns. English uses the same forms for
both; for example: Mary loves him (direct object); Mary sent him a letter
(indirect object).
Reflexive pronouns are used when a person or thing acts on itself.
English example: John cut himself.
Reciprocal pronouns refer to a reciprocal relationship. English example:
They do not like each other.
o Prepositional pronouns come after a preposition. No distinct forms exist in
English; for example: Mary looked at him.
o Disjunctive pronouns are used in isolation, or in certain other special
grammatical contexts. No distinct forms exist in English; for example: Who does
this belong to? Me.
o Dummy pronouns are used when grammatical rules require a noun (or pronoun),
but none is semantically required. English example: It is raining.
o Weak pronouns.
Possessive pronouns are used to indicate possession or ownership.
o In strict sense, the possessive pronouns are only those that act syntactically as
nouns. English example: Those clothes are mine.
o Often, though, the term "possessive pronoun" is also applied to the so-called
possessive adjectives (or possessive determiners). For example, in English: I
lost my wallet. They are not strictly speaking pronouns because they do not
substitute for a noun or noun phrase, and as such, some grammarians classify
these terms in a separate lexical category called determiners (they have a syntactic
role close to that of adjectives, always qualifying a noun).
Demonstrative pronouns distinguish the particular objects or people that are referred to
from other possible candidates. English example: I shall take these.

Indefinite pronouns refer to general categories of people or things. English example:

Anyone can do that.
o Distributive pronouns are used to refer to members of a group separately, rather
than collectively. English example: To each his own.
o Negative pronouns indicate the non-existence of people or things. English
example: Nobody thinks that.
Relative pronouns refer back to people or things previously mentioned. English
example: People who smoke should quit now.
o Indefinite relative pronouns have some of the properties of both relative
pronouns and indefinite pronouns. They have a sense of "referring back", but the
person or thing to which they refer has not previously been explicitly named.
English example: I know what I like.
Interrogative pronouns ask which person or thing is meant. English example: Who did
that?
o In many languages (e.g., Czech, English, French, Interlingua, Russian) the sets of
relative and interrogative pronouns are nearly identical. Compare English: Who is
that? (interrogative) to I know who that is. (relative).

Pronouns and determiners

Pronouns and determiners are closely related, and some linguists think pronouns are actually
determiners without a noun phrase.[1] The following chart shows their relationships in English.
Pronoun Determiner
Personal (1st/2nd)

we

we Scotsmen

Possessive

ours

our homeland

Demonstrative

this

this gentleman

Indefinite

some

some frogs

Interrogative

who

which option

Determiner
Noun are often preceded by the words the, a, or an. These words are called DETERMINERS.
They indicate the kind of reference which the noun has. The determiner the is known as the
DEFINITE ARTCLE. It is used before both singular and plural nouns:
Singular

Plural

The taxi

The taxis

The paper

The papers

The apple

The apples

The determiner a (or an, when the following noun begins with a vowel) is the INDEFINITE
ARTICLE. It is used when the noun is singular.
a taxi
a paper
a apple
The article the and a/an are the most common determiners, but there are many others:
Any taxi
That question
Those apples
This paper
Some apple
Whatever taxi
Whichever taxi
Many determiners express quantity:
All examples
Both parents
Many people
Each person
Every night
Several computers
Few excuses
Enough water

No escape

Perhaps the most common way to express

Conjuction
The set of adpositions overlaps with the set of subordinating conjunctions (or complementizers):

(preposition) before/after/since the end of the summer

(conjunction) before/after/since the summer ended
It looks like another rainy day (preposition) / it's going to rain again today (conjunction).

All of these words can be treated as prepositions if we extend the definition to allow clausal
complements. This treatment could be extended further to conjunctions that are never used as
ordinary prepositions:

unless they surrender, although time is almost up, while you were on the phone

In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, phrases or clauses
together. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a
"conjunction" should be defined for each language. In general, a conjunction is an invariable
grammatical particle, and it may or may not stand between the items it conjoins.
The definition can also be extended to idiomatic phrases that behave as a unit with the same
function as a single-word conjunction (as well as, provided that, etc.).

Types of conjunctions
Coordinating conjunctions, also called coordinators, are conjunctions that join two or more
items of equal syntactic importance. Coordinating conjunctions include for, and, nor, but, or, yet,
and so. The mnemonic acronym FANBOYS may be used to remember these, with each letter
being the initial letter of a conjunction.
Authorities do not all agree on the status of sentences that start with coordinating conjunctions.
Many consider these to be grammatically incorrect. Others consider it an issue of style.
Correlative conjunctions are pairs of conjunctions that work together to coordinate two items.
English examples include both and, (n)either (n)or, and not (only) but (also)....
Subordinating conjunctions, also called subordinators, are conjunctions that introduce a
dependent clause. English examples include after, although, if, unless, so that, therefore, in spite

of, despite, because, etc... Complementizers can be considered to be special subordinating

conjunctions that introduce complement clauses (e.g., "I wonder whether he'll be late. I hope that
he'll be on time"). Some subordinating conjunctions (although, before, until, while), when used
to introduce a phrase instead of a full clause, become prepositions with identical meanings.
In many verb-final languages, subordinate clauses must precede the main clause on which they
depend. The equivalents to the subordinating conjunctions of non-verb-final languages such as
English are either

clause-final conjunctions (e.g. in Japanese), or

suffixes attached to the verb and not separate words[1]

Such languages in fact often lack conjunctions as a part of speech because:

1. the form of the verb used is formally nominalised and cannot occur in an independent
clause
2. the clause-final conjunction or suffix attached to the verb is actually formally a marker of
case and is also used on nouns to indicate certain functions. In this sense, the subordinate
clauses of these languages have much in common with postpositional phrases.

Coordinating conjunctions

for: indicates reason (used as a synonym of 'because'), or purpose

and: used to connect words, phrases, or clauses
nor: presents an alternate negative idea
but: indicates a contrast or exception
or: presents opinions, alternates, or substitutes for ideas of equal importance
yet: connects ideas that follow logically and are contrary
so: shows the consequences of related ideas

Modal Verb
There are ten modal verbs: can, could, may, might, ought, shall, should, will, would, and must.
They differ from the other auxiliaries both in that they are defective verbs, and in that they can
never function as main verbs. (There do exist main verbs can and will, but these are distinct.)
They express the speaker's (or listener's) judgement or opinion at the moment of speaking. Some
of the modal verbs have been seen as a conditional tense form in English.
Some schools of thought consider could to represent the past tense of can. However, according to
Michael Lewis (The English Verb), this is not always true. "Could I get you something?" clearly
is not expressing past time. Lewis instead suggests that could is a remote form of can. It is
evident after re-examining the usage of could in this light that remoteness does describe the
general meaning, e.g.

I could not (couldnt) do it. (remoteness of time)

It could happen. (remoteness of possibility)
Could you do me a favor? (remoteness of relationship)

The remaining modal auxiliaries can be viewed in this same manner. Lewis covers this area in
detail in his book; see the References section.

Auxiliary verb
n linguistics, an auxiliary (also called helping verb, helper verb, auxiliary verb, verbal
auxiliary, or linking verb) is a verb functioning to give further semantic or syntactic
information about the main or full verb following it. In English, the extra meaning an auxiliary
verb imparts alters the basic form of the main verb to have one or more of the following
functions: passive, progressive, perfect, modal, or dummy.
In English, every clause has a finite verb which consists of a full verb (a non-auxiliary verb) and
optionally one or more auxiliary verbs, each of which is a separate word. Examples of finite
verbs include write (no auxiliary verb), have written (one auxiliary verb), and have been written
(two auxiliary verbs).
There is a syntactic difference between an auxiliary verb and a full verb; that is, each has a
different grammatical function within the sentence. In English, and in many other languages,
there are some verbs that can act either as auxiliary or as full verbs, such as be ("I am writing a
letter" vs "I am a postman") and have ("I have written a letter" vs "I have a letter"). In the case of
be, it is sometimes ambiguous whether it is auxiliary or not; for example, "The ice cream was
melted" could mean either "Someone/something melted the ice cream" (in which case melt would
be the main verb) or "the ice cream was mostly liquid" (in which case be would be the main
verb).
There are many auxiliary verbs in English, the primary auxiliary verbs are to be and to have ,
other major auxiliarys are shall, will, may and can, there are also numerous other lesser used
verbs such as, do, must, ought, used and dare.[1][2] Auxiliary words are formed by conjugation
into the different forms: am, is, are, shall, should, be, being, been, was, were, will, would, has,
have, having, had, do, does, did, can, could, may, might, must, ought(to), get, got, gotten.

Functions of the English auxiliary verb

Passive voice
The auxiliary verb be is used with a past participle to form the passive voice; for example, the
clause "the door was opened" implies that someone (or something) opened it, without stating
who (or what) it was. Because many past participles are also stative adjectives, the passive voice
can sometimes be ambiguous; for example, "at 8:25, the window was closed" can be a passive-

voice sentence meaning, "at 8:25, someone closed the window," or a non-passive-voice sentence
meaning "at 8:25, the window was not open". Perhaps due to this ambiguity, the verb get will
sometimes be used colloquially instead of be in forming the passive voice, "at 8:25, the window
got closed".

Progressive aspect
The auxiliary verb be is used with a present participle to form the progressive aspect; for
example, the sentence "I am riding my bicycle" describes what the speaker is doing at the very
moment of utterance, while the sentence "I ride my bicycle" is a temporally broader statement.

Perfect aspect
The auxiliary verb have is used with a past participle to form the perfect aspect; for example, the
sentence "Peter has fallen in love" differs from "Peter fell in love" in that the former implies
some connection to the present likely that Peter is still in love while the latter does not.

Modal
There are ten modal verbs: can, could, may, might, ought, shall, should, will, would, and must.
They differ from the other auxiliaries both in that they are defective verbs, and in that they can
never function as main verbs. (There do exist main verbs can and will, but these are distinct.)
They express the speaker's (or listener's) judgement or opinion at the moment of speaking. Some
of the modal verbs have been seen as a conditional tense form in English.
Some schools of thought consider could to represent the past tense of can. However, according to
Michael Lewis (The English Verb), this is not always true. "Could I get you something?" clearly
is not expressing past time. Lewis instead suggests that could is a remote form of can. It is
evident after re-examining the usage of could in this light that remoteness does describe the
general meaning, e.g.

I could not (couldnt) do it. (remoteness of time)

It could happen. (remoteness of possibility)
Could you do me a favor? (remoteness of relationship)

The remaining modal auxiliaries can be viewed in this same manner. Lewis covers this area in
detail in his book; see the References section.

Dummy
More often than not in modern English, auxiliaries are added to a sentence when negating it or
making it a question. A dummy auxiliary do is used for questions and negatives when only a full
verb exists in the affirmative statement (i.e. there are no auxiliaries in the affirmative, noninterrogative form). The same dummy do is used for emphasis in the affirmative statement form.
This is known as do-insertion.

For example, if the affirmative statement form is:

I know the way.

the interrogative, negative and emphatic forms are respectively:

Do I know the way?

I don't (do not) know the way.
I do know the way.

Compare this with:

Should I know the way?

I shouldn't (should not) know the way.
I should know the way.

The emphatic form would normally be marked by intonation or punctuation of 'I' or 'should'.
With the first two forms, it depends on context.

Quasi-auxiliaries
English contains many verb phrases that function as quasi-auxiliaries, such as be going to, used
to, is about to. These quasi-auxiliaries require an infinitive. Others take a gerund (e.g. need, as in
need fixing, in American English), past participle (e.g. get, as in get done), or other verb form.
In American English, go and come can be quasi-auxiliaries with nothing between them and the
following verb phrases, but only in their plain forms: "Come show me", "I'll (I will) go get it",
and "I had to come see for myself". This use can be regarded as ellipsis of and the previous
are equivalent to "Come and show me", "I'll (I shall) go and get it", and "I had to come and see
for myself" and British English requires the and to be included, as does American English
when the verb is not in its plain form: "I went and saw him." (It is also possible in both dialects
for to to be used in place of and, though this typically has a slightly different sense.)

Properties of the English auxiliary verb

See also: English verbs
See also: List of English auxiliary verbs

Negation
Auxiliaries take not (or n't) to form the negative, e.g. cannot (cant), will not (wont), should not
(shouldnt), etc. In certain tenses, in questions, when a contracted auxiliary verb can be used, the
position of the negative particle n't moves from the main verb to the auxiliary: cf. Does it not
work? and Doesn't it work?. This has not always been the case as the following sentence from
Jane Austen's 'Pride & Prejudice' indicates: 'The country is a vast deal pleasanter, is it not, Mr.
Bingley?'.

Inversion
Auxiliaries invert to form questions:

You will come.

Will you come?

Emphasis
The dummy auxiliary do is used for emphasis in positive statements (see above):

I do like this beer!

Ellipsis
Auxiliaries can appear alone where a main verb has been omitted, but is understood:

I will go, but she won't (will not) [go].

The verb do can act as a pro-VP (or occasionally a pro-verb) to avoid repetition:

John never sings in the kitchen, but Mary does. (pro-VP: replaces sings in the kitchen)
John never sings in the kitchen, but Mary does in the shower. (pro-verb: replaces sings)

Tag questions
Auxiliaries can be repeated at the end of a sentence, with negation added or removed, to form a
tag question. In the event that the sentence did not use an auxiliary verb, a dummy auxiliary (a
form of do) is used instead:

You will come, won't you?

You ate, didn't you?
You won't (will not) come, will you?
You didn't (did not) eat, did you?

In Scottish English
An example was made famous by Hamish and Dougal

You will have had your tea?

as a greeting. The implication is that I (having made the utterance) am not going to put myself in
the position in which I would have to offer you tea, lest you had not had any.
More common, is the construction of the form

You'll (You will) not be wanting a drink?

uttered by a person who should offer you one but wishes not to do so.

Articel
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.[1]
Articles are traditionally considered to form a separate part of speech. Linguists place them in the
class of determiners.
Articles can have various functions:[2]

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.

An indefinite article (English a, an) is used before singular nouns that refer to any
member of a group.

A cat is a mammal.
A partitive article indicates an indefinite quantity of a mass noun; there is no partitive
article in English, though the quantifiers some or any often have that function.

French: Voulez-vous du caf ? ("Would you like some coffee?" or "Do you want coffee?")
A zero article is the absence of an article (e.g. English indefinite plural), used in some
languages in contrast with the presence of one.
Cats love fish.

Linguists interested in X-bar theory causally link zero articles to nouns lacking a determiner.[3]

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.
[4]
Also in English word order, articles precede any adjectives that modify the applicable noun.[5]
In French, the masculine definite article le (meaning the) is contracted with a following word if
that word begins with a vowel sound. When the French words de and le are to be used
sequentially (meaning of the), the word du is used instead, in addition to the above mentioned
use of du as a partitive article.
In various languages other than English, the form of the article may vary according to the
grammatical gender, number or case of the noun it combines with. (In some languages the article
may be the only indicator of the case, eg., ::Der Hut des Napoleon, Napoleon's hat.) Many
languages do not use articles at all, and may use other ways of indicating old vs. new
information, such as topic-comment constructions.

The
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(July 2008)

The word the is the only definite article in the English language, and the most frequently used
word in English.[6] In spoken English, it takes two forms, the vowel being a schwa before a word
starting with a consonant, and otherwise a long e sound.

The article "the" is used with singular and plural, countable and uncountable nouns when both
the speaker and listener know the thing or idea already. The article the is often used as the very
first part of a noun phrase in English. For example:
The end of time begins now.
Here, "the end of time" is a noun phrase. The use of the signals that the reference is to a specific
and unique instance of the concept (such as person, object, or idea) expressed in the noun phrase.
Here, the implication is that there is one end of time, and that it has arrived.
The time is 3:29 PM.
There are many times, but the meaning here is the time now, of which (at the moment the
sentence was produced) there is only one.

Etymology
Linguists believe that the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages (i.e., the Proto-IndoEuropean language) did not have a definite article. Most of the languages in this family do not
have definite or indefinite articles; there is no article in Latin, Sanskrit, Persian, nor in some
modern Indo-European languages, especially in Slavic languages Russian, Polish and Czech,
etc., nor in the Baltic languages Latvian, Lithuanian and Latgalian. (The only Slavic
languages that have articles are Bulgarian and Macedonian). Classical Greek has a definite
article, but Homeric Greek did not. In the etymologies of these and many other languages, the
definite article arose from a demonstrative pronoun or adjective changing its usage; compare the
fate of the Latin demonstrative "ille" (meaning "that") in the Romance languages, becoming
French le, la, l, and les, Spanish el, la, lo, los, and las, Italian il, la, lo, l, i, gli, and le, and
Portuguese o, os, a, and as.
In some languages, such as Icelandic, Norwegian and Romanian, the definite article is not
always a separate word but is sometimes attached to the end of the noun it governs:
Icelandic: hestur, horse; hesturinn, the horse
Norwegian: stol, chair; stolen, the chair
Romanian: drum, road; drumul, the road
The and that are common developments from the same Old English system. Old English had a
definite article se, in the masculine gender, seo (feminine), and t (neuter). In Middle English
these had all merged into e, the ancestor of the Modern English word the.
In Middle English the (e) was frequently abbreviated as a with a small e above it, similar to
the abbreviation for that, which was a with a small t above it. During the latter Middle English
and Early Modern English periods, the letter Thorn () in its common script, or cursive, form
came to resemble a y shape. As such the use of a y with an e above it as an abbreviation became
common. This can still be seen in reprints of the 1611 edition of the King James Version of the

Bible in places such as Romans 15:29, or in the Mayflower Compact. Note that the article was
never pronounced with a y sound, even when so written.

Reduction and omission

In news headlines and informal writing, such as notes or diaries, the definite article and some
other particles are often omitted, for example, "Must pick up prescription at pharmacy today."
In some Northern England dialects of English, the is pronounced as [t] (with a dental t) or as a
glottal stop, usually written in eye dialect as <t>; in some dialects it reduces to nothing. This is
known as definite article reduction; see that article for further details.
In dialects that do not have // (voiced dental fricative), the is pronounced with a voiced dental
plosive, as in /d/ or /di/).

Geographic uses
In English most cities and countries never take the definite article, but there are many that do. It
is commonly used with many country names that derive from names of island groups (the
Philippines), mountain ranges (the Lebanon), deserts (the Sudan), seas, rivers and geographic
regions (the Middle East).[7] Such use is declining, but for some countries it remains common.
Since the independence of Ukraine, most style guides have advised dropping the article, in part
because the Ukrainian Government was concerned about a similar issue involving prepositions.
Another example is Argentina, which is now more usual than 'the Argentine', which is old
fashioned.
The definite article is always used for countries whose names are descriptions of the form of the
state rather than being purely geographical; for example, the United States, the Soviet Union, the
Czech Republic.
The U.S. Department of State [2] and CIA World Factbook [3] show the definite article with only
two countries: The Bahamas and The Gambia.
Similarly, in other languages some geographic names take the article while others do not: die
Schweiz, Switzerland; les Pays-Bas, the Netherlands.

Pronunciation
According to Merriam-Webster' online dictionary, "the" is pronounced with a schwa (as in "uh")
before words beginning with consonants (e.g. b, c, d, f), and usually with a different vowel sound
/i/ (as "y" in "easy") before words beginning with vowels and in cases of proper nouns or
emphasis[8].

References
1. ^ Westphal, E.O.J. (1971), "The click languages of Southern and Eastern Africa", in
Sebeok, T.A., Current trends in Linguistics, Vol. 7: Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa,
Berlin: Mouton
1. ^ Nancy Harrison (1985). Writing English: a user's manual. Taylor & Francis. p. 104.
ISBN Writing English: a user's manual.
2. ^ James R. Hurford (1994). Grammar: a student's guide. Cambridge University Press.
p. 20. ISBN 0521456274.

The English Verb 'An Exploration of Structure and Meaning', Michael Lewis. Language
Teaching Publications. ISBN 0-906717-40-X