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The article
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Grammarians are not always agreed as to the grammatical status of the article in Modern English.
In structural grammars the article is often dispensed with as a separate part of speech and absorbed into the adjective class.
The name " determiners" is then given to closed system items, which, functioning as adjuncts, show their head-words to be nouns. The most central type of " determiner" is that to which we traditionally give the name article.
Some grammarians consider the article to be a kind of morpheme. The absence of the article is accordingly referred to as " zero-morpheme" applied in inflected languages to certain forms having no grammatical endings and thus differing from such forms of the same word as have their own endings. This statement is open to question and not in every sense valid. It seems more in accordance with the nature of the language to identify the English article as a typical morphological category, a special function-word used as an overt marker of the noun and contributing to its meaning.
The practice prevalent in English grammars is to describe the multifarious use of the article with different classes of nouns. Reference is generally made to its particularising, generalising, defining, descriptive and other functions as well as traditional idiomatic use. Important treatments of the subject, with absence of article also included as a term in the article system, will be found in the grammar books and work-papers given in our reference list. Students of English will always find it helpful to consult such sources for the study of the articles in English as Oxford English Dictionary and Christophersen's monograph The Articles: a Study of Their Theory and Use.
The definite and the indefinite article as mutually exclusive stand in obvious contrast. Their use is built around contrasting definiteness and indefiniteness, generalisation and concretisation.
With absence of article functioning as a term in the article system (sometimes referred to as the zero-form) distinction must also be made between such contrastive uses based on the category of number as: Singular (the indefinite article):: Plural (absence of article) Countable (the indefinite article):: Uncountable (absence of article)
With regard to the criteria employed in our analysis we have certain observations which are pertinent to a summary statement. In the first place, it is important to be clear about the grammatical meaning of each article, finding out whether it has one or several meanings, each of them signalled by the context. We cannot describe, for instance, the meanings of one article only in terms of how it contrasts with the other, but must take account of contextual indications; we have to look at contrasting patterns rather than contrasting forms. And here the question naturally arises about the invariable meaning of the article, by which we mean, taking the view put forward by A. Isachenko 1, a stable element in its
1 See: А. В. Исаченко. О грамматическом значении. «Вопросы языкознания», 1964.
grammatical meaning that is always preserved irrespective of the context in which it occurs.
It seems perfectly reasonable to say, for instance, that the invariable grammatical meaning of the indefinite article is that of generalisation. As a matter of fact, this element of meaning, i. e. referring an object to a whole class of similar ones without its individual peculiarities, is preserved in all the variety of its uses. Examples are:
a) A stitch in time saves nine. b) A little bird perched on the tree. c) A bird may be known by its song. d) Birds of a feather flock together. e) They were talking to a boy I know well. f) I consider this picture a masterpiece of art.
As can be seen from the above examples, the invariable element of indefiniteness is preserved in all the patterns. The difference in meaning will be sought in the particular type of predication in which the article appears.
(Observe the difference in meaning if we replace a by the in the above sentences; consider that it is not always the same difference).
The indefinite article in its full range stands in contrast to the definite article. The invariable meaning of the latter is that of restriction and concretisation.
The definite article the is an unstressed variant of the demonstrative that. From the point of view of meaning it functions as a less forceful equivalent of this as well as that.
Cf. How do you like the weather? How do you like this weather?
The distinctive feature of the definite article in such parallel uses is that the element of pointing is normally weaker with the than with the demonstrative pronoun. There is similar direction of the attention; but there is more dependence on obviousness and less on selection by means of pointing of one kind or another. Viewed from this angle, the definite article is a great deal like he and it. Characteristically the indicates that identification seems complete on the basis of conspicuousness in the particular situation or context.
" How did you do it, this rotten thing? " he asked. " Let me see the plates. Yes. Yes. That's it. You look healthy as a goat. Who's the pretty girl? " (Hemingway)
Difficulties often arise when the presence or absence of the article signals contrasted structural relationships. Such kind of contrast is seen, for instance in:
a bowl or vessel:: a bowl or a vessel. The first will mean that bowl and vessel are synonyms and no contrast between the two is intended. In the second, the intention is to contrast the two and imply that if the object is bowl, it is not a vessel. This contrast is not inherent in the a as such, but in the different structural relationship which the presence or absence of the indefinite article signals.
Such relations may be marked by radically different means in various other languages.
Variations in the use of the articles and their significant absence must be examined in the grammatical environment in which nouns
occur. The structural and lexical meanings of nouns appear inextricably involved and are inseparable. The meaning of the article reveals itself in actual speech, i. e. in relation to a noun used in a given context.
A few typical examples to illustrate the statement are given below. Others will readily occur to the student.
And in Soames, looking on his father so worn and white and wasted, listening to his strangled breathing, there rose a passionate vehemence of anger against Nature, cruel, inexorable Nature, kneeling on the chest of that wisp of a body, slowly pressing out the breath, pressing out the life of the being who was dearest to him in the world. His father, of all men, had lived a careful life, moderate, abstemious, and this was his reward — to have life slowly, painfully squeezed out of him. (Galsworthy)
...It had been the old England, when they lived down yet here — the England of packhorses and very little smoke, of peat and wood fires, and wives who never left you, because they couldn't, probably. A static England, that dug and wove; where your parish was your world, and you were a churchwarden if you didn't take care. (Galsworthy)
It is to be noted that the use of the article with abstract noun has its own idiosyncratic traits in English and presents special difficulties for a foreign student to master.
Contrasting use of the article, depending on the context, the meaning of noun adjuncts in particular, is often an effective means to produce emphasis in pictorial language, e. g.:
The river was whitening; the dusk seemed held in the trees, waiting to spread and fly into a sky just drained of sunset. Very peaceful, and a little rie — the hour between! Those starlings made a racket — disagreeable beggars; there could be no real self-respect with such short tails! The swallows went by, taking 'night-caps' on guats and early moths; and the poplars stood so still — just as if listening — that Soames put his hand to feel for breeze. Not a breath? And then, all at once — no swallows flying, no starlings; a chalky hue over river, over sky! The lights sprang up in the house. A night-flying beetle passed him, booming. The dew was failing — he felt it, must go in. And as he turned, quickly, dusk softened the trees, the sky, the river. (Galsworthy)
Here is a good example to show how effective is the repetitive use of nouns with the definite article for stylistic purposes in narration:
It was hot that night. Both she and her mother had put on thin, pale low frocks. The dinner flowers were pale. Fleur was struck with the pale look of everything; her father's face, her mother's shoulders; the pale panelled walls, the pale grey velvety carpet, the lamp-shade, even the soup was pale. There was not one spot of colour in the room, not even wine in the pale glasses, for no one drank it. What was not pale was black — her father's clothes, the butler's clothes, her retriever stretched out exhausted in the window, the curtains black with a cream pattern. A moth came in, and that was pale. And silent was that half-mourning dinner in the heat...
Her father called her back as she was following her mother out. She sat down beside him at me table, ana, unpinning the pale honeysuckle, put it to her nose. (Galsworthy)
The repetitive use of the definite article with abstract nouns is an
effective means to intensify their emotive flavour in a given context. Examples are numerous:
Think of the needy man who has spent his all, beggared himself and pinched his friends, to enter the profession, which will never yield him a morsel of bread. The waiting — the hope — the disappointment — the fear — the misery — the poverty — the blight on his hopes, and end to his career — the suicide perhaps, or the shabby, slip-shod drunkard. (Dickens)
Observe also the use of the definite article with proper nouns for stylistic purposes in the following sentences:
Why should not the able and wonderful Cowperwood be allowed to make the two of them rich? (Dreiser)
Aunt Hester, the silent, the patient, that backwater of the family energy, sat in the drawing-room, where the blinds were drawn; and she too, had wept at first, but quietly, without visible effect... She sat, slim, motionless, studying the grate, her hands idle in the lap of her black silk dress. (Galsworthy)
If Liz was my girl and I was to sneak out to a dance coupled up with an Annie, I'd want a suit of chain armour on under my gladsome rags. (Henry)
The use of the article with common and proper nouns is often an effective means of expressive connotation, e. g.:
" ...Know my partner? Old Robinson". " Yes, the Robinson. Don't you know? The notorious Robinson". (Conrad)
" ...How goes it? "
" All well" said Mr. Gills pushing the bottle towards him.
He took it up and having surveyed and smelt it said with extraordinary expression:
" The? "
" The", returned the instrument maker. Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass and seemed to think they were making holiday, indeed. (Dickens)
Instances are not few when the omission of the article is also a matter of stylistic considerations in narration, in free and easy colloquial style or, say, represented speech in literary prose.
See how the use of the nouns without the article is in harmony with the structure of the following sentences:
It had a simple scheme — white pony in stable, pigeon picking up some grains, smallboy on upturned basket eating apple. (Galsworthy) There was a drowsy hum of very distant traffic; the creepered trellis round the garden shut out everything but sky, and house, and pear-tree, with its top branches still gilded by the sun. (Galsworthy)
Engine, wheels and carriages came within a few yards, ripping the view into tatters of blue sky and field, each in a decimated second dancing between the carriage-gaps.
A word must be said about a distinct trend in modern English syntax is the omission of the definite and indefinite articles in various ways familiar to students of English and other European languages.
The loss of the definite article has affected certain specific phrases, e. g.:
go to university for go to the university
all morning for all the morning
all winter for all the winter
all week for all the week, etc.
a majority of... seems to replace the majority of...
It is difficult to see anything to be gained by the change so far as distinction of meaning is concerned, since the old and new uses appear to be synonymous 1.
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