the article lies in indicating the substantivization of other parts of speech, mainly adjectives or participles, also pronouns, adverbs, numerals.
. The main functions of the indefinite article are: classifying, generic and numerical.
. The two main functions of the definite article are specifying and generic.
. The absence of any article, which is sometimes referred to as the zero article, is as meaningful as their actual use. It is regularly observed with countable nouns in the plural, with non-counts used in a general sense, with proper nouns.
. The omission of an article differs from the absence of an article in that it is stylistically or traditionally determined.translation contextual indefinite
2. Lexico-grammatical aspects of translation of the definite and indefinite articles
to a concrete detailed analyses of ways and methods of rendering English articles into Russian it is very important to mention the category of Definiteness and Indefiniteness as it can give a considerable semantic shade of meaning.
2.1 The Category of Definiteness and Indefiniteness
noun in English and Russian, as in other languages, possesses the semantic category of definiteness and indefiniteness [39, c.412]. In other words, when a noun (even a proper name) or family/geographical name is taken out of its context to which it belonged, its meaning may not be definitely understood, ie identified. Thus, the proper names Mykola, Petro or Anatoliy when used for the first time (eg. I met Petro / Mykola yesterday evening) may not be definite enough for the listener or collocutor who may inquire: which Petro / Mykola? Your friend / cousine Petro / Mykola? You mean your co-student Petro / Mykola? etc. Even when one uses the geographical name like Beskyd the real meaning of this proper noun may not be clear to the listener who has not enough preliminary information about the used name. This is because «Beskyd» may be the name of a mountain in the Carpathians as well as a tourist camp or a hotel there. Similarly identified must also be many other nouns in Russian despite its being a predominantly synthetic by structure language. Similarly when one hears the English king «s name Charles, one would naturally inquire which king Charles? The first, the third or the fifth? Only when the substantivized numeral is added (Charles the First or Charles the Third, etc.), Will the King »s name become definite (clearly and finally indentified).
The category of definiteness and indenfiniteness may be identified in English and Russian both at language level (when the noun is out of a concrete context) and at speech level, ie in oral presentation or in a written microtext. The main means of making the noun definite in English is to use the definite or indefinite (zero) article or any other determining or identifying adjunct. For example: Bristol (zero article) means the town of Bristol, whereas the Bristol is the name of a hotel or an inn, ship, etc. Similarly even with such a proper noun as Росія which, when used without the definite article, means the country of Russia, but when presented in inverted commas it will mean anything: готель « Росія », концертний зал« Росія » or an agricultural en terprise /...
