In class today, we learned about the constituency of words. Today,
we learned about the constituency of words in class. We learned about the
constituency of words in class today.
When working with the words ‘a,’ ‘the,’ ‘the,’ ‘skunk,’ ‘boy,’
‘hall,’ ‘large,’ ‘across,’ ‘and,’ ‘walked,’ ‘threw,’ and ‘down’ to create
sentences, one comment that was brought up was that ‘a’ and ‘the’ can be
interchanged to create syntactically correct sentences. For example, “A boy
walked across the hall and threw the large skunk down,” “the boy walked across
a hall and threw the large skunk down,” and “the boy walked across the hall and
threw a large skunk down” are all grammatically correct.
However, the meanings of those sentences are slightly different. This
reminded me of last weekend, when my 3rd grader cousin in Korea asked me what
the difference between using ‘a’ and using ‘the’ is. She could not figure out
when it is necessary to use an article before a noun, and when it is
appropriate to not use anything at all. She sent me the following picture:
and told me she is quite happy she doesn’t live in the United
States because English is way too difficult! Defensively, I tried to convince
her that English is way easier than Korean (and I promise it is), and that I
could clearly explain to her what the difference between the article usages
are. However, that proved to be much more difficult than I had predicted.
How do we explain ‘a’ and ‘the’ to foreigners? This goes back to
the point that native speakers develop language by gathering information
through usage, while foreigners learn a language by learning specific rules
regarding that language. I’m not a native speaker of English myself, and I
probably first learned how to use ‘a’ and ‘the’ through rules. However, over
the years, I’ve completely forgotten the rules and have come to use the English
articles without necessarily thinking about them. I know instinctively when to use ‘a,’ when to
use ‘the,’ and when not to use anything at all.
Therefore, to native speakers, the difference is intuitive and
perhaps difficult to explain in words. “A boy walked down the hall” is
different from “the boy walked down a hall.” Simply put, I think ‘the’
emphasizes the noun immediately following it, and ‘a’ makes a generic claim
about the noun. Turns out, ‘the’ is called the definite article, and ‘a’
is the indefinite article! (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/540/01/)
But how was I to explain the answer to #5 to my cousin?
“Elephants live in water,” “elephants live in the water,” and
“elephants live in a water.” The first two make sense, but the third does not. I
ended up calling my cousin to try and teach her by speaking the differences,
but that proved to be a futile effort. In the end, I ended up explaining to her
in the most twisted equivalents I could possibly think of in Korean.
My question is, when are the English articles ‘a/an’ and ‘the’ necessary?
Is it possible to devise a clean-cut rule for when to use them and when not to?
Can anyone think of an example where exchanging ‘a’ and ‘the’ in a sentence create grammatically incorrect sentences?
[Word Count: 540]
I think you're entirely right when you say that "‘the’ emphasizes the noun immediately following it, and ‘a’ makes a generic claim about the noun." In other words, 'the' refers to a specific noun (for example "the hall" would refer to one particular hall), while 'a' can be any generic noun (for example, 'a hall' could be any particular hall). In response to your question about the sentence "elephants live in a water", I think these parameters can still apply. As you said before, 'the' refers to a particular noun. In this case, 'the water' refers to water as a particular land form, as opposed to 'the land' or 'the sky'. In this case, 'a water' wouldn't make sense because when referring to 'the water' as a collective noun for a specific type of land form, there are not multiple 'waters' and therefore using 'a' to specify that it could be any particular water does not make sense.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to know the answers to your questions. Though I'm not sure I have a great solution, another question came to my mind: What if you were dealing with a sentence that used "a" or "the" twice? Do I need to say, "I'm doing the math and the linguistics assignments tonight," or can I leave out the second "the"? Without it, you'll probably understand what I mean--I have two homework assignments, one in math, one in linguistics. But without the second "the," my sentence could be perceived to mean that I have multiple homework assignments for my joint math-and-linguistics class. I have to assume the second "the" is necessary, because if you were to invert the usage of "the," and say, "I'm doing math and the linguistics assignments tonight," the meaning shifts slightly--suddenly, I have general "math" to do, but my multiple assignments are in linguistics.
ReplyDeleteLaura's comment above is particularly insightful, sentence structure reversion serves as an awesome tool in determining meaning, particularly in ambiguous sentence structure cases. However, does a devotion to such a granular analysis of sentence structure promote understanding of language, or detract from its use? In other words, I am asking whether our understanding of the background of somebody's statement, i.e. the context, should serve as a greater determinant of meaning and intended meaning in our analysis of sentence meaning. If this were the case, it would reflect the descriptive nature of linguistics as a whole. I would be remiss to say that our understanding of language is descriptive.
ReplyDeleteGreat discussion on the rules of definite and indefinite articles in the English language. I think at some point, we must acknowledge that the usage or lack of usage of 'a' or 'the' boil down to exceptions and conventions. 'a' or 'the' do not precede all nouns. For example, phrases such as 'doing math homework' or 'breathing under water' do not need articles because they have become linguistic units in their own right.
ReplyDeleteI was especially intrigued by the first part of the blog, where the idea of semantics was brought up. Even though sentences such as "the skunk threw a large boy down the hall" make grammatical sense, we don't think twice before realizing the ridiculousness of such a statement. Perhaps, the picture of a 3rd grader's homework shows us that such assumptions about language are in fact trained and conditioned from a new age. For example, she writes "dogs don't run under water", which is based on the association of the verb 'swim' with 'water'. Such conditioning may be a factor in shaping our assumptions and judgment about language.
Because ‘a/an’ are indefinite articles, I think they should be used when describing a generic noun(s), while the definite article ‘the’ should be used to refer to a specific noun(s). For example, if I ask someone, “Can a please have a pencil?” I’m asking to borrow any old pencil that the person might have. On the other hand, if I ask “Can I please have the pencil that I lent you yesterday?” I’m referring to a specific pencil, not just any old pencil.
ReplyDeleteI’m a big fan of K-pop and Korean culture, so it intrigues me that the Korean language does not have the same distinction between the indefinite articles ‘a/an’ and the definite article ‘the’ as we do in English. Because the English language has many grammatical rules that are often broken or have exceptions, it is often said that the English language is difficult to learn as a second language. I wonder what my attitude would be toward the Korean language if I decided to learn it. Perhaps I might have as much difficulty as your cousin with learning English.
The case of "water," that you mention in your blog post, is a particularly interesting one and I think helps to shed light on this issue. There's been discussion in the follow-up comments about how "the" is used to refer to a specific object from the set of objects that the noun refers to. In the case of water, we don't think of it as a set of objects as we do with say "dog," where we can think of many different dogs to which the noun "dog" would refer. Rather, in the case of “water”, the single object is itself the set. We can think of similar examples where only “the” is appropriate as an article. For example, we wouldn’t say “a United States” because the set that the proper noun refers to is itself just one object.
ReplyDeleteThe main difference between the two is that “a” is an indefinite article and “the” is a definite article. Therefore, “a/an” refers to a generalized object while “the” refers to one specific object. Take the sentences “A boy runs down a hall” and “The boy runs down the hall.” The first sentence refers to the general concept of some boy somewhere runs down some nonspecific hall. Conversely, the second gives the impression of a specific boy running down a specific hall. Unlike “the,” however, “a” is always singular and cannot be paired with a plural noun (i.e. the scissors vs. a scissors). This is further solidified in some other languages like French, where the indefinite article is “un/une,” which translate directly to “one.” “A” therefore refers to one unspecified object of a general set whereas “the” refers to one or many specific object(s). Thus, the specificity in the indefinite article is in number, while the specificity in the definite article is in the object it precedes.
ReplyDeleteThe only example I could think of to answer your question about the exchange between “the” and “a” creating grammatically incorrect sentences is when using the definite article “the” to indicate a plural instead of a singular noun, as Ellen pointed out. For example, consider the sentence “The skies are blue.” Clearly, changing “the” to “a” would be grammatically incorrect (i.e. “A skies are blue.”)
ReplyDeleteIn the previous comments, it has been noted that one of the main differences between “the” and “a/an” is the specificity of the articles. But what about not using an article at all? In some cases, we do not use articles before specific nouns. For example, “the” is not used before people’s names. And in some cases, it does not make sense to use articles when referring to something generic such as “Food is good.” (not “a food” or “the food”)
I think the discussion of "a" and "the" really connects with this week's reading, in that the articles, or rather, syntactic determiners, "upgrade" nouns to noun phrases. Generally, concrete nouns are by default just nouns until upgraded by determiners, and, although I've never seen this model before in my English life despite speaking the language for 17 years, I'd be interested in seeing how effectively this syntactic explanation presented the "a"/"the" rules to non-native English learners.
ReplyDeleteOf course, syntactic rules, at least within the reading thus far, has not provided an algorithmic model for whether to use "a" or "the", but I imagine the distinction in meaning is moreso a matter of semantics than syntax. I hope to be able to revisit this question once when we're a few classes deeper in semantics work.
Your cousin doesn’t want to live in the US because English is too difficult, and you don’t want to live in Korea because Korean is too difficult.
ReplyDeleteFor humans, it’s very easy to pick up languages up to about age 5. After that, doing so becomes much more difficult. Korean likely has no definite/indefinite article equivalent, which probably makes it very hard for your cousin to wrap her head around the idea. She’s never had a need for two different articles to express her ideas, and yet English speakers do, which is likely the source of her confusion.
I had a similar experience with the Spanish verb for “to be” when I was taking Spanish classes I high school. In English, where we only have one such verb, I can’t imagine a need for a second. In Spanish, though, there are two, ser and estar, which led to great amounts of confusion while learning the language, especially considering how often that verb (or those verbs) is used.
That is a great question, and the issue is actually much more complicated than most native speakers of English would expect. Determiners (the category where "the" and "a" belong) signifies reference, and generally "the" is used when the reference is definite, whereas "a" is used when the reference is indefinite. However, in actual usage, "the" and "a" can be used idiomatically to convey nuances that usually escape native speakers' attention. For example, "she is in charge of him" and "she is in the charge of him" convey the opposite meaning, but it's difficult to say why the reference of "charge" can contribute to this semantic variation. Therefore, non-native speakers usually have to memorize all these seemingly unrelated instances of the/a usages.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it's worth noting that most native speakers tend to underestimate the irregularity of their first languages (and hence, the difficulty for non-native speakers to acquire a different language) because of the huge difference between the mechanisms of first and second language acquisition.
I agree with Joseph’s statement that “the usage or lack of usage of 'a' or 'the' boil[s] down to exceptions and conventions.” There are definitely formal rules that we use as general governing principles, but they don’t necessarily apply in every situation, and they aren’t necessarily always useful in explaining article usage to non-native speakers, because article use is largely idiomatic.
ReplyDeleteIn many languages, the presence or absence of an article doesn’t always drastically change the meaning of a sentence, but there is still a prescriptive grammar as to when one should use an article and when one shouldn’t. For example, consider the 4 following French sentences:
1. Elle est actrice.
2. *Elle est une actrice.
3. C’est une actrice.
4. *C’est actrice.
(Note that 2 and 4 are ungrammatical.) When the subject pronoun “elle” is used, an article is unnecessary (and using one would be ungrammatical, as in #2); when the contraction “c’est” is used, an article is required (and not using one results in the ungrammaticality shown in #4). Yet the 2 grammatical sentences (1 and 3) both convey the same meaning (“she is an actress.”). Prescriptively, there is an environment which requires an article and an environment that requires that an article not be present. And yet the meaning is unchanged.
Can anyone think of any examples in English where the presence or absence of an article doesn’t change the conveyed meaning?
Huh, I guess I never completely processed this fact - the and a are impossible to explain as a native speaker. I see in the comments that people are attempting to explain it, but I still find it super difficult to understand how I learned it at such an early age and can use it so properly.
ReplyDeleteI remember trying to teach some of these conditions to my younger cousins, but now I'm not sure I even got it across properly.
It would be interesting to learn what similarities exist in other languages (articles, tenses, etc.) and how to properly explain them
I have been in a situation before where I am unable to explain the rules of my native language to someone else. As young children with malleable minds, we learn language through probabilistic associations and direct experience. We are never explicitly taught the rules of the language, but we are nonetheless able to speak it. On the other hand, second languages are taught. We are given textbooks and we learn the rules of the language.
ReplyDeleteDoes not being able to explain or even identify the rules of your native language suggest that our brain does not explicitly use the rules to speak the language? When we speak a second language, we operate within the constraints of rules we know but when we speak our native language, it seems more automatic. What does this suggest about how the brain treats native versus second languages?
Although we cannot identify the rules and do not think of them while speaking, does our brain still have an unlabeled list of rules it uses? This would make a lot of sense, because learning the rules after having learned a language is easy.
In response to Maggie’s comment, I don’t think ‘the’ in ‘Elephants live in the water’ is trying to distinguish ‘the water’ from ‘the land’ or ‘the sky.’ Rather, the rationale for using ‘Elephants live in the water’ rather than ‘Elephants live in a water’ has more to do with the distinction between countable vs. uncountable objects. As Sophia mentioned, ‘the’ refers to specific objects, whereas ‘a’ refers to generic objects. So, in the case of ‘Elephants live in (the) water,’ we have the intention of communicating the idea of Elephants living in a generic body of water, so we start by constructing the sentence ‘Elephants live in a water,’ since ‘a’ is for generic objects. But the hitch is that ‘a’ can only attach to countable objects, so we have to change ‘Elephants live in a water’ to ‘Elephants live in the water’, even though semantically, we mean elephants live in a generic rather than specific body of water.
ReplyDeleteTo extend the discussion on articles even further, I’m curious why we have both ‘a’ and ‘the’ as options when they seem to violate the maxim of quantity from a Gricean standpoint. For example, couldn’t we just keep ‘a’ and omit ‘the’ entirely? That is, we could keep ‘a’ and use it to refer to specific nouns, but then drop all other articles entirely when referring to generic nouns. Under this new rule, if someone says ‘Let’s go to swimming pool’ (no articles), we could use Grice’s maxim of quantity to infer that she means any swimming pool, since if she meant a particular swimming pool, she would have said ‘Let’s go to a swimming pool’ instead.
Related to Laura’s comment, I’m also curious why in French, we say ‘les maths’ (the maths), and in British English, ‘maths’, whereas in American English, we say ‘math’ (singular with no articles). How does this alternation arise?