US English Need for determiners (a/an) in each item of a list (already parallel)?
I have searched every grammar site (not just Grammar Sites) and I can’t find an answer. Is there an online test I can do? I am looking for a rule that says in a list of singular nouns, each noun must have its own determiner even if they would all be the same.
My employer has invoked parallelism as an explanation, but I don’t think that applies here – as they are already of parallel form. Everything I can find on parallelism speaks of verbs and tenses, not nouns.
What is the meaning of “that’s not some thing,’ but I can’t prove it and that’s a stylistic choice”?
Specific example:
“The sensor includes a right-angle infrared LED and right-angle phototransistor…”
“The sensor includes a right-angle infrared LED and right-angle phototransistor…” Are
both right? When does the determiner have to be used, where is the rule? If it is a stylistic thing, I just need confirmation.
What you have there is a conjoined noun phrase sharing an article, no different from the boldfaced subject of The continued to fight until I thrown water on them. I cannot remember who threw water on them but I knew it was “my dog and my cat.”
Moreover, this is a simple case of Conjunction Reduction, which deletes repeated material, hopefully without creating too much ambiguity. Indefinite articles are subject to some rather unusual restrictions (special use with mass nouns, etc), so it’s not so common to see something like
- The sensor contains a .
What the matter is, provided everything matches, as it does here, no problems.
Conjunction reduction is extremely common, and once you learn to recognize it,
should you have no trouble parsing stuff like this.
…and, yes, it is a stylistic choice, like most decisions in English (or any other language)?
Can you quote me?
