1 The determiners in the text are:

articles: the, a

numerals: 10

quantifiers: some, several, many

possessives: his

demonstratives: that

Note that some quantifiers are multi-word items: a lot of, lots of, a few, a bit. Also, the possessive determiners (their, your, my, etc.) are, in some grammars, also called possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns.

Note, too, that determiners can form sequences, and that they do this according to a fixed order.

Some examples of determiners in sequence (from the Cambridge English Corpus) are:

So check your oil every few weeks.

It’s recognition of all the many things that I’ve been involved with.

My partner had a slightly high blood sugar level during both our first and second pregnancies.

2 The text contains the following zero articles: Ø R. Wilfer; Ø keys; Ø home; Ø London; Ø fields; Ø trees; Ø Battle Bridge; Ø suburban Sahara; Ø tiles; Ø bricks; Ø bones; Ø carpets; Ø rubbish; Ø dogs; Ø dust; Ø contractors. Note that all the other nouns have some form of determiner preceding them: his desk; one evening; the Holloway region; that part; a tract, etc.

Examples of the rules are as follows:

a non-count nouns with indefinite reference: Ø rubbish; Ø dust; also Ø suburban Sahara, since

Sahara is being used here to mean desert (in its non-count sense).

b plural count nouns with indefinite reference: Ø keys; Ø fields; Ø trees; Ø tiles; Ø bricks; Ø bones; Ø carpets; Ø dogs; Ø contractors

c proper nouns: Ø R. Wilfer; Ø London; Ø Battle Bridge

d common expressions of time, place, transport, etc.: for Ø home

Here are some more examples of rule d:

time expressions: at sunset; by noon; around midnight place expressions: at work; at sea; to school; in prison; in hospital; to town means of transport: by bus; on foot; by taxi

3 a The exercise is designed to show that the fundamental difference between indefinite and definite reference is one of new versus given (or shared) information. In the first conversation, A introduces a new entity (a dog) into the discourse. He makes no assumption that B knows which dog he is talking about. Hence the first picture matches this exchange.