The use of the article before the possessive form
As a rule, the article is referred to the noun in the possessive case form.
· a day ’ s work – работа одного дня.
· if it is expressed by the proper noun, the article is not used: Jane Stark’s papers.
· no article is used before abstract nouns like today, yesterday, tomorrow: yesterday’s newspaper, today’s meeting.
Though the paradigm of the English noun is presented by 4 grammatical forms, the number of the latter depends on the semantic kind of the noun
| Common, count,l iving being | Singular | Plural |
| Common case | A student | students |
| Possessive case | A student’s | Students’ |
| Common, count, inanimate | Singular | Plural |
| Common case | A table | tables |
| Possessive case | --- | ---- |
| Common, uncount, abstract | singular | Plural |
| Common case | advice | --- |
| Possessive case | --- | ---- |
| proper | singular | plural |
| Common case | Tom, Europe | --- |
| Possessive case | Tom’s, Europe’s | ---- |
| proper | singular | plural |
| Common case | ------ | The Urals |
| Possessive case | ----- | ---- |
The article
The article presents the Russian speaking with one of the most difficult and intricate problems of language structure because there are no articles in Russian.
The article is the structural / formal part of speech used with the noun modifying it.
The English articles (indefinite and definite) belong to a syntactic group of words which are called determiners whose function is to modify the noun. Besides the article, the group of determiners includes:
· demonstrative pronouns: this / that; these / those;
· dependent possessive pronouns: my, his, her, its, your, their, our;
· the pronouns - quantifiers: each, every, some, any, no, much, many, more, most, a few, few, a little, little enough and so on.
Remember that only one determiner can be used in a noun phrase: a rose, her rose, any rose, this rose, every rose, some English books, his new coat, the butter, a little butter, and so on.
It has been a long debated question how many articles there are in English. Some grammarians claim there are 3 articles in English: the indefinite, the definite and the zero articles. This assumption has reasonable grounds, as the absence of the article before a noun is also meaningful. We can illustrate this problem by comparing the following sentences:
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(1) English is a foreign language for me.
(2) I don’t understand the language he is talking in.
(3) Language is a means of communication between people.
What are the ideas denoted by the articles in these sentences?
In (1) there are many foreign languages, English is one of them (classifying)
In (2) the language he is using (specifying)
In (3) language is used in some general sense, like something non-concrete, something that has
acquired some abstract meaning (as a result of generalizing)
All these ideas are expressed in Russian variants of these sentences but not grammatically as it is done in the English ones with the help of aticles. In Russian the ideas are understood from the context of the whole sentence:
(1) Английский для меня иностранный язык
(2) Я не понимаю (тот) язык, на котором он говорит.
(3) Язык – средство коммуникации между людьми.
Compare the other three sentences:
(1) They bought a new bed.
(2) The bed they bought was much bigger than the old one.
(3) Yesterday he went to bed very early.
So articles are grammatical means to express various meanings typical of English nouns.
Use of articles with various semantic groups of nouns
The indefinite article and the zero article when used with common countable nouns have the following meanings:
(1) Nominating –naming the thing/things we have in mind: He bought a car. A man and a woman entered the room. I like children. I like reading books.
(2) Classifying –assigning a thing/things to a certain class of similar objects: Her brother is a student of the higher school of economics. They are also students of this university. Sir Williams has always been a good neighbour to us. Life may be not very easy for beautiful girls.
(3) Numeric – when the historic meaning of oneness becomes predominant: An hour in the morning is worth two in the evening. Quin couldn’t hear a word she spoke. A hundred or so men, women and children were sitting around the fire. He bought a dozen ties at Woolworth’s.
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(4) Generalizing – when the noun denotes a typical member of a class: A cat is a domestic animal. A tiger is dangerous. Cats are domestic animals. Tigers are dangerous.
The definite article is used both with singular and plural nouns of all semantic classes. It has two meanings:
(1) Specifying – singling out an object or a group of objects from all the other objects (people, animals, abstract notions) of the same kind.
The specification is carried out by means of
· a restricting (limiting, particularizing) attribute: I’m sure David is the man we are looking for. The students in the next room are taking an examination. That was the end of my journey. The man standing by the window is my father.
· The preceding context: They have bough a new car. The car is of the latest make. “My wife has left me.” Dick could hardly get the words out.
· the situation (when two people understand what they are talking about because of the time and place and their background knowledge): (after visiting a theatre) I liked the acting and I enjoyed the music too. (after a flower exhibition) The flowers were splendid. (when at home) Go to the kitchen and switch off the gas the kettle is boiling.
· the meaning of the noun, if it is a unique thing: the sun, the moon, the universe, the world, the horizon, the equator : The sun sank below the horizon. The sky is clear. He traveled round the world. Somecultural and historical places that are similar to unique things: The Tower, the British Museum, the Hermitage, The Red Square. The White House, the Black sea, the Thames and so on.
(2) Generic – the noun is looked upon as the representative of the whole class of objects of the same kind. The generic article suggests the highest degree of abstraction: The tiger is a wild animal and a dangerous one. He plays the piano very well. The rose is my favourite flower. Conan Doyle is a master of the detective story.
The nouns in the generic sense are used only in the singular.
Note: the nouns man and woman are generally used in their generic sense without any
article: Woman is physically weaker than man. Man sounds very proud.
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Compare the generalizing meaning of the indefinite article and the generic meaning of
the definite article in the following sentences: A cat is a domestic animal. / Cats are
domestic animals. – The cat was domesticated many centuries ago.
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