The linking article

Class 2 adjectives are never used bare: a short linking article — i, e, të, or së — always precedes them. Which one appears depends on five things: the noun's gender, case, definiteness, number, and whether the adjective sits right next to its noun.

In the singular nominative only, the article is always i (masculine) or e (feminine) — attributive or predicative, definite or indefinite, position never changes it here: djali i mirë "the good boy", Djali është i mirë "the boy is good".

Singular, definite noun

Singular, indefinite noun

Plural — gender doesn't split the article here, only case, definiteness and adjacency do:

Whenever the article is separated from its noun — by predicative position after "is/are", or by another word coming between them — e and së shift to të: studentët e mirë "the good students" (adjacent) becomes Studentët janë të mirë "the students are good" (predicative). Të itself never changes — this single rule explains most of the tables above.

Ordinal numbers (second, third, fourth…) are grammatically Class 2 adjectives and follow this exact same system — the only difference is that they come after the noun they modify instead of before it.