Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[hepster72]

Articles are always confusing to me, especially definite articles.

I know "the" is not used with a non count noun as in "Intelligence is difficult to quantify" but is used with a non count noun with a modifying phrase as in "The intelligence of animals is variable but undeniable"

When used with a count noun and a modifying phrase, is "the" used or is "a/an" used?

e.g. A configuration of a device or The configuration of a device.

Someone please help me.

Thanks in advance.

[lotus]

Hi hepster72,

You can use either:

The configuration of the device was set for optimum efficiency.

A configuration of the device was shown in the schematics.


--lotus