usage of THE with the plural subject (or noun)

I have following construction.

Table 4 shows the parameters used by the filtering approach. The parameters are determined by the knowledge about the data and landscape.

I want to clarify, whether second sentence should be started with THE or without THE. I am confused, as with plural words we are not normally use THE (As I know, is that so?)

gnp

Posted 2013-10-14T10:13:44.057

Reputation: 1 896

Its absolutely right. But to start with 'Those' will make more sense. – VijayaRagavan – 2013-10-14T10:27:58.353

We can use the definite article with a plural to denote a known or stated subset of the class. Here, the parameters in the table. See http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/10854/rule-on-absence-of-the-article-the-with-plural-nouns

– VijayaRagavan – 2013-10-14T10:33:29.927

1We do not use "the" with plural nouns? Now I am confused, what do you mean? How do you say a sentence like:"The people in the offices here are all my colleagues." without using "the"? Maybe you meant something else, I am not sure I understand the question. – fluffy – 2013-10-14T15:31:58.770

Answers

You appear to be confused with a/an, which is not used with plurals (it indicates a single but indefinite object). The specifies that the noun following it is definite (not just any parameters, but these specific parameters) and is used with singular or plural nouns.

chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic-

Posted 2013-10-14T10:13:44.057

Reputation: 3 387

English has three main articles.

The indefinite article, used when the following noun refer to an object in a category (or many objects, in the plural), but we don't know which object specifically. The singular form is a or an, and the plural form is nothing (a zero article).

There is a car in the street.
There are {} cars in the street.
The definite article. It is expressed with the word the when refering to a specific object (or specific objects, in the plural) which is described by the context.

I see a car and a bicycle. The car is red.
The cars in the street are moving fast.
A zero article. This is a partitive article, and it is also used to refer to general concepts. The partitive article is more commonly singular, but it can be plural; the boundary between a plural partitive article and an indefinite article is not always clear.

{} Water is wet.

I'm simplifying a lot here — these are just the most common cases.

In this sentence, the subject of the second sentence refers to a specific set of parameters, the ones mentioned in the previous sentence. Therefore the definite article is used. The definite article is always the, whether the noun is singular or plural.

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

Posted 2013-10-14T10:13:44.057

Reputation: 5 082