ARTICLES.

171.  There is a class of words having always an adjectival use in general, but with such subtle functions and various meanings that they deserve separate treatment.  In the sentence, “He passes an ordinary brick house on the road, with an ordinary little garden,” the words the and an belong to nouns, just as adjectives do; but they cannot be accurately placed under any class of adjectives.  They are nearest to demonstrative and numeral adjectives.

[Sidenote:  Their origin.]

172.  The article the comes from an old demonstrative adjective (se, seo, ethat, later the, theo, that) which was also an article in Old English.  In Middle English the became an article, and that remained a demonstrative adjective.

An or a came from the old numeral an, meaning one.

[Sidenote:  Two relics.]

Our expressions the one, the other, were formerly that one, that other; the latter is still preserved in the expression, in vulgar English, the tother.  Not only this is kept in the Scotch dialect, but the former is used, these occurring as the tane, the tother, or the tane, the tither; for example,—­

     We ca’ her sometimes the tane, sometimes the tother.—­SCOTT.

[Sidenote:  An before vowel sounds, a before consonant sounds.]

173.  Ordinarily an is used before vowel sounds, and a before consonant sounds.  Remember that a vowel sound does not necessarily mean beginning with a vowel, nor does consonant sound mean beginning with a consonant, because English spelling does not coincide closely with the sound of words.  Examples:  “a house,” “an orange,” “a European,” “an honor,” “a yelling crowd.”

[Sidenote:  An with consonant sounds.]

174.  Many writers use an before h, even when not silent, when the word is not accented on the first syllable.

     An historian, such as we have been attempting to describe,
     would indeed be an intellectual prodigy.—­MACAULAY.

     The Persians were an heroic people like the Greeks.—­BREWER.

     He [Rip] evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to
     anything else but his business.—­IRVING.

     An habitual submission of the understanding to mere events and
     images.—­COLERIDGE.

     An hereditary tenure of these offices.—­THOMAS JEFFERSON.

[Sidenote:  Definition.]

175.  An article is a limiting word, not descriptive, which cannot be used alone, but always joins to a substantive word to denote a particular thing, or a group or class of things, or any individual of a group or class.