"a" and "the" as adjectives.

[bernardbeaven]

According to the Oxford Children's Dictionary, "A" and "The" are considered adjectives.
I find this hard to explain. Can you tell me in what way can they be considered adjectives?

Sincerely, B.Beaven.

[TheParser]

[QUOTE=bernardbeaven;641963]According to the Oxford Children's Dictionary, "A" and "The" are considered adjectives.
I find this hard to explain. Can you tell me in what way can they be considered adjectives?

Sincerely, B.Beaven.

********** NOT a teacher **********

Hello, B. Beaven.

(1) What a great question.

(2) I am an old man who learned the 8 traditional parts of speech:

verb
adverb
noun
pronoun
adjective
preposition
conjunction
interjection

(3) The articles are obviously none of them, so for the sake of

simplicity they are classified as adjectives -- for they do, in a

sense, modify the following noun:

You cannot say Man called me on the phone. You need to say:

A man called .... You can understand why the grammar books

would decide to label it as a so-called adjective -- maybe because of its

position.

(4) If you are following the newer grammar books, it is labeled -- I

believe -- a determiner.

THANK YOU