Lecture 9 the article

Status of Article: The English article differs greatly from the article in such languages as German and French where it has gender distinctions, The English article appears to be more independent of the noun as it is not connected with the gender and case. The problem of the grammatical meaning of the English article and its status in the system of language is one of the most controversial problems. There are several points of view on it.

1. Article is a morpheme, on the ground that it has no lexical meaning of its own and that it is nothing but a structural element marking a word as a noun.

2. A speech signal that has a deictic function, just as other determiners.

3. A part of speech: a. It is a subclass of adjectives; b. It is a separate part of speech.

4.The status is impossible to solve because of the lack of objective criteria.

Article is a determining unit of specific nature accompanying (lie noun in communicative collocation. The peculiar feature of the article is that the use of the article with the noun is obligatory. Still an article can reveal certain characteristics typical for apart of speech:

1. the lexico-grammatical meaning of (in)definiteness',

2. the morphological destination is its being a structural marker.

2. the right-hand combinability with nouns,

3. the function of noun specifier (determiner).

Semantic properties: The lexical meaning of a(n) in Modern English is a very weak reminder of its original meaning (Oli. an * one). The general lexico-grammatical meaning of these words, # usual, is not identical with their individual lexical meanings. The definite article expresses the identification or individualization of the referent of the noun The indefinite article is commonly interpreted a referring the object denoted by the noun to a certain class of similar objects; in other words, the indefinite article expresses a classify"1! generalization of the nounal referent As for the various uses of nouns without an article, from the semantic point of view they all should be divided into two types. In the first place, there are uses where the articles are deliberately omitted out of stylistic considerations. We see such uses in telegraphic style in titles, in headlines.

Morphological properties. Not only the status but also the number of the article in English has been debated for a long time.

Obviously there are two material articles that accompany the noun inEnglish: the definite and the indefinite. One might be tempted to regard the two articles as members of an opposition, and the meanings ''defmiteness', 'indefiniteness' as the particular meanings of some grammatical category. The absence of the article is referred to either as the meaningful absence of the article or as the "zero" article. But if the article is a word, the notion "zero word" cannot be accepted as logical and grounded, if it is a morpheme the notion "zero morpheme" is no less illogical.

Syntactic properties: Combinability: The common features in the conlbinability of the articles are due to their belonging to the same part of speech, in other words, the lexico-grammatical combinability of the articles is the same. Both of them have right-hand connections with the same part of speech, nouns. The difference in their combinability can be explained by the difference in their lexical meanings. Identical nounal positions for the pair "the definite-the indefinite article": e.g.: the train hooted (that train) - A train hooted (some train) correlative nounal positions for the pair 'the indefinite article- the absence of article" -Be careful, there is a puddle wider you feet (a kind of puddle); - Be careful, there is mud on the ground (as diferrent from clean space).

NUMBER AND MEANING OF ARTICLES

It has been a long debated question how many articles there English. Obviously there are only two material articles, the definite article the and the indefinite article a (an). The distinction thus is between, for instance, the language and a language. However , the noun language, and indeed many other nouns, are also used without any article, as in the sentence Language is a means of communication.

It is obvious that the absence of the article in this sentence is in itself a means of showing that “language in general”, and not any specific language (such as English ,or French, etc.), is meant. Hence we may say that there are three variants (1) the language, (2) a language, (3)language. Now the question arises, how this third variant is to be treated. The older grammatical tradition described it as “omission of the article “,which is obviously inadequate, since there is not the slightest reason to believe that the article in such cases was ever “omitted”. Another view is that we should describe this “absence of the article “, and sometimes this notion is made more precise and the phenomenon

Is called “meaningful absence of article “.A third view which has been gaining ground lately, is that the very absence of the article is a special kind of article, which is then termed “zero article “. According to this view, then, there would be three articles in English : definite, indefinite and zero.

This idea of a zero article takes its origin in the notion of “ zero morpheme”, which has been applied to certain forms in inflected languages,-namely to forms having no ending and differing by this very absence from other forms of the same word, which have their individual ending. A case in point in Russian is the genitive plural of some nouns (chiefly of the feminine gender), e.g.рук, which is characterized as a special form by the absence of any ending, as distinct from nominative singular рука,genitive singular руки,dative plural рукам, etc. the notion of “ zero morpheme “ may also be applied in English, for instance, to the singular form of nouns(room) as distinct from the plural form with its –s-inflection. If, therefore, we were to interpret the article as a morpheme , the idea of zero article would make no difficulty .If, on the other hand, we take the article to be a word, the idea of a “ zero word” would entail some difficulty. It has been pointed out that the notion of a “zero copula “ has been applied to such Russian sentences as он здоров, where there is no verb. In this sentences the present tense is implied as distinct from он был здоров and он будет здоров, where the past or future tense is expressed by a form of the verb быть.However, in this case it is not a “zero copula”, but a “zero form” of the copula быть.We might thus formulate the following tense system of this copula :present tense – “zero”, past tense был , future tense будет.So even in this particular case the notion “zero word” seems very doubtful. Still more doubtful is the notion ‘zero” with reference to the English article, if the article is a word. We will therefore proceed on the assumption that the notion “zero article” is only possible if the article is not a word.

The two main views of the article are, then, these: (1) The article is a word( possibly a separate part of speech) and the collocation “article+noun” is a phrase (if of a peculiar kind).2.The article is a form element in the system of the noun it is thus a kind of morpheme, or if a word, an auxiliary word of the same kind as the auxiliary verbs. In that case the phrase "article + noun" is a morphological formation similar to the formation "auxiliary verb+; + infinitive or participle", which is an analytical form of the verb.

Now, the very fact that two such widely divergent views of the article are possible shows that there are some quite peculiar difficulties here. Besides those already mentioned, there is the problem of the meaning of each article: we must find out whether it has one or several meanings, each of them appearing in a different context.

We can illustrate this problem by comparing, for example, the two sentences: (1) The dog has come home arid (2) The dog is a domestic animal. Of course it is at once obvious that the dog in the former sentence means one individual dog, whereas the clog -in the latter sentence means the dog in general, as a zoological species. The question, then, is whether the article itself has two distinct meanings (if so, the second of these is termed "the generic article") or whether the meaning of the article is the same in both sentences, and the difference in meaning between them depends on: some other factor.

If we endorse the first view, we shall say that the definite article has at least two distinct meanings, viz. (1) it means that an object is singled out from all objects of the same class, (2) it means that the whole class of objects, as distinct from other classes, is referred to.

If we endorse the second view, we shall say that the definite article has one meaning only, that of something singled out from other entities. Now, whether the essence thus singled out is a separate object or a whole class depends not on the article at all but on the other elements in the sentence, usually on the predicate-Reverting to the two sentences, (1) The dog has come home and (2) The dog is a domestic animal, we shall see that each of the predicates has several peculiarities which influence the meaning of the sentence one way or another. Let us analyse each of these. First, the grammatical peculiarities. In (1) the predicate is a verb in the present perfect tense, in (2) it is a group "link verb + predicative", and the link verb is in the present tense. That of course would not in itself be sufficient to show the different meanings of the sentences, but it does not give a certain. indication this way: the verb in the present perfect tense is more likely than not to express a concrete action (i.e. one that has taken place once), while the group "link verb in the present tense + predicative" is very likely to express some general characteristic.

Now, these grammatical points are supplemented by some lexical points, which make the difference quite clear. In (I) the verb come and the adverb home denote a concrete physical action and the place to which it is directed, while in (2) the predicative a domestic animal denotes a zoological idea and thus proves that by, the dog is meant not an individual dog but the whole species, According to the view, then, the meaning of the definite article itself is the same in both sentences, and the difference proceeds from the peculiarities of the predicates and the words expressing them.

Which of the two views is the more convincing one? Both views-seem to be defensible, and the decision will have to be made on the ground of some guiding principle.

Such a principle may be that of the invariable, i.e. of a stable element in the meaning of a word preserved throughout all the changes and combinations in which the word may be found. This principle of the invariable has been recently very forcefully defended by A. Isachenko in his paper on grammatical meaning. The principal may be briefly formulated in this way: "State an invariable wherever possible," or negatively in this way: "Do not state difference wherever this is not strictly necessary." In short, the principle amount to this. Whenever a word, or a word-form, appears to have different meanings in different contexts, look for that element of its mean which is always there and does not depend on any context: that is the invariable. If we adhere to this view (as it appears we should) we will say that there is no difference in the meaning of the definite article between the sentences. The dog has come home and The dog is a domestic animal; the difference proceeds from other sources, as we have explained above. It is obvious, however, that not everybody will accept the principle of" the invariable, and for those who will not do so, the question of the meaning of the definite article will appear in a different light.

The same may be said about the indefinite article. If we compare the two sentences, (1) There is a hill behind our house, and (2) A hill is the opposite of a valley, the question will arise, whether the indefinite article with the noun hill has different meanings in the two sentences. If we think it has, we shall say that in it serves to denote an individual object, without reference to its individual peculiarities, and in (2) any object of a given class. If, on the other hand, we endorse the principle of the invariable, the article will be said to have the same meaning of indefiniteness in both sentences, and the difference in meaning will have to be sought elsewhere. We shall first of all note the different types of predicate in the two sentences. In (1) we have the predicate there is, in (2) the group "link verb + predicative", and the predicative is a noun. There is, besides, an adverbial modifier in (1) and an object in (2). From the lexical point of view, it is important to note that in (1) we find three words with a meaning pointing to a concrete situation, viz, behind, denoting a relation in space, house, and especially ours. In (2), on the other hand, there is the group the opposite of a valley, which expresses one general notion, not restricted to any concrete position in space or time. The indefinite article before valley is of course quite parallel to that before hill, and they are bound to be used in quite the same way. All these peculiarities in point to the sentence having a general meaning, i.e. - expressing a definition, Such, then, are the factors on which the general meaning of each sentence and the use of the indefinite article depend. Taking this line, then, we should say that the invariable in the indefinite article is its meaning, of taking an object without its individual peculiarities. Whether the noun used with this article is used to denote "a certain hill" or "any hill", is outside the meaning of the article itself, and depends on a series of different factors, which we have tried to point out. It must be emphasized, of course, that if the principle of the invariable is not accepted the result of the analysis will be different.

In coming now to the difference in meaning between the definite and the indefinite article, we should start by comparing two sentences which are exactly alike in everything except that one has the definite article where the other has the indefinite. We ought to find several pairs of this kind, and then try to get at the essence of the difference between them. So let us take these two, in the first place Give me a newspaper, please! and Give me the newspaper, please! Here the difference is obvious: the one sentence means, Give me some newspaper, no matter which, and the other means, Give me that particular newspaper that you are reading at the moment, or the one that is lying on the table, or the one that you had in your hand as you came in, etc., depending on the situation. Of course many similar pairs of sentences might be found. Here, then, the difference is that between "individual object with its own characteristics", and "some object belonging to that particular class of objects". This may indeed be called the difference between definite and indefinite in the usual sense of the words. However, this distinction will not apply to all cases and we must proceed to look at the sentences where the line of distinction is of another kind. Let us now take these two sentences. The door opened, and the young man came in, and The door opened, and a young man came in. We need not deny that at the bottom of this distinction there is one between "definite" and "indefinite"; however, another element has come in here, which may be briefly described like this. We can only say: the door opened, and the young man came in, if we knew in advance that the person standing, say, in the corridor was a young man; if there /was a knock at the door, and we did not know who had knocked, and we said, "Come in," we can only say: the door opened, and a young man came in, which might be made more explicit in the following way, ... and the person who came in proved to be a young man (implying, not an old man, not a young girl, etc.). Thus the fact it was a young man would be new, it would be the central point of the sentence. Coming back now to the sentence with the definite article, we can say that its meaning approximately this, 'The door opened and the young man (did not stay out but) came in. Here, then, the central point would be that he came in.' Now, this element of the sentence which is the central point may be said to correspond to the semantic predicate, or the theme. Then the indefinite article, as opposed to the definite article in sentences of this kind, would be a meanings of expressing the semantic predicate of the sentence. How should we then define its meaning? To use the simplest words possible, we might say that the indefinite article expresses what is

new and the definite article expresses what is known already, or at least what is not: presented as new. This opposition would then be superimposed on that between definite and indefinite.

To make the point quite clear, let us consider two more sentences. Let us assume that we are speaking about what happened in a classroom during a lesson: The door opened and a teacher came in. - The door opened and the headmaster came in. In both cases we did not know in advance who was coming, we only learnt it, when the door opened. We would then say, ... a teacher came in, but not ...a headmaster came in. How are we to account for the difference? Obviously the reason is this. There are many teachers in a school, but only one headmaster. Therefore the sentence: The door opened, and a headmaster came in would have no reasonable sense. Apparently, the idea of definiteness (there being only one headmaster in every school) takes the upper hand and the idea of newness is not expressed at all.

Thus, the sentence: the headmaster came in, which in this case corresponds to the Russian вошел директор, might, in another context, correspond to the Russian директор вошел: in that case came in, add not the headmaster, would be the semantic predicate.

Let us now see in what relation the absence of the article stands to the meanings of the definite and the indefinite article.

When we consider the absence of the article, we have to distinguish between the singular and the plural number. Broadly speaking, the absence of the article with a noun in the plural corresponds to the indefinite article with that noun in the singular, whereas the absence of the article with a noun in the singular stands apart and does not correspond to anything in the plural.

We will first consider the absence of the article with a noun in the singular and start with nouns which can equally be used with the definite and the indefinite article and without any article. One of these is the noun language. We take three sentences: Language is a means of communication. English is the foreign language I know best. Everyone must study a foreign language. The difference here is obvious enough. Language without article does not refer to any one language (Russian, English, German, etc.) but to the general idea of that means of communication.