ss is similar to river in the river Thames and dog is similar to Thames in the same construction, dog and Thames are identifying, or particularizing names. However, the result of the elision may also be a construction in which the identifying name is preceded by the zero article, eg the writer Dickens, the continent Europe, the country Italy Dickens, Europe, Italy.
These are proper nouns proper, while those with the definite article are still in the process of development.nounsnouns do not much differ from countables as concerns the realization of the category of determination: in the text they may be actualized as representatives of the entities as a whole or an individual manifestation of the entities.:
. Beauty is rare.
. They had a courage that no defeats would crush.
. Mary s beauty simply paralysed him.sentence (1) the noun beauty stands for the entity as a whole; in sentence (2 and 3) the nouns courage and beauty refer to an individual manifestation of entities: courage denotes a non-particular, specific manifestation (aspect) and beauty, a particular, specific manifestation of the notion.How important is the article as a semantic determiner? The definite article generally needs the support of the co-text: off the co-text nouns determined by the definite article are semantically ambiguous, eg the dog, the robbery of old people.the dog mean a specific particular dog or a particular class? Does the noun robbery mean a specific or a particular manifestation of the entity? We can not answer the question without recourse to the cotext. Only the indefinite article is an unambiguous marker: it marks the noun as an individual representative or an individual aspect of the entity. However, it can not tell us whether the noun means a specific or a non-specific individual. The conclusion that we can draw from this analysis is that language often needs more than one signal to realize its meanings, the most powerful signal being the context or the co-text.determination of the nounarticle is generally treated as a marker of the noun -full or partial, eg a man, the rich. However, not all nouns are invariably used with the material article, eg strength. Even countables are not always preceded by the material article, eg books. Besides the article, nouns are identified in the sentence by other determiners (pronouns, numerals), prepositions, by the presence of appropriate affixes, their relative position. The role of the article is often secondary, or supplementary. To prove this, compare the texts below: the original and its version in which the nouns have been stripped of the articles: was a hot day. The two windows opened upon the distant murmur of London. The burning sun of July danced on the rosy and grey waters of the Thames (J.Galsworthy) .was hot day. Two windows opened upon distant murmur of London. Burning sun of July danced on rosy and grey waters of Thamesthe absence of the articles in the second text, the reader still finds the passage comprehensible from a semantic point of view. The elimination of the definite article from the word-combination two windows only affects the communicative structure of the sentence as compared to the original: the two windows conveys thematic information, while two windows conveys rhematic information. Yet, we should not minimize the role of the article as a noun-marker: the article speeds up the process of identification and, consequently, it speeds up the process of the comprehension of the text.determination of the noun
Information is a process of interaction between what is already known or predictable and what is new or unpredictable. The sentence, which is a unit of information, is a structure made up of two parts: the New and the Given. By Given Information is meant information shared by both the speaker and the addressee: it may be recoverable from the context or familiar to them due to the shared environment. Besides the context, Givenness and Newness can be expressed by the definite and indefinite article, respectively.the following text: man and a woman were sitting on a park bench. The man was about forty years old. The woman was somewhat younger. The bench had recently been painted.important is the definite article as a marker of Givenness? In this type of text, where Givenness is established through the secondary mention of the entity, the article plays a supplementary role. But in texts where Givenness is established through the shared knowledge of the environment or the world in general, the article plays a primary role.:. Where did you find the cat ?. In the car.Givennes is not marked in any way, the text may lose communicative cohesion.the following part of the text: was a hot day. Two windows opened upon the distant murmur of London.text comes off its hinges: the referents of two windows are...
