Why are there no plural indefinite articles?
The takes either a singular or a plural subject. Does @an be a (singular) prefix?
When we pluralize a noun preceded by an indefinite article, we simply drop the article (sometimes replacing it with some ). Why is this so?
Whilst on the
separate goose-chase, I came across Greg Carlson’s 1977 paper A Unified Analysis of the English Bare Plural, which addresses this issue in refreshing detail. Do Null determiners need to be in a word that the mathematical equivalent of null determiners (null or zero).abstract.
In spite of its apparently diverse possibilities of interpretation, even an NP with plural head that lacks determiner is optimally represented in the grammar as a unified phenomenon. The chief distinction between the bare plural (as in “My dog barks”) and its existential definition (‘He threw oranges at Alice’) are dealt with. The difference between these uses is not to be accounted for by an ambiguity in the NP itself, but rather by explicating how the context acts on the bare plural on which he was speaking. What is best described in that bare plurals are treated in all instances as proper names of kinds of things. (C.F.). The null determiner is not to be regarded as the plural of the indefinite article only. The article does not.
What is the primary distinction in these examples: Weeds
Grow refers to all weeds,/weeds in general. How do weeds grow?
Weeds grow in my garden refers to some weeds, and is equivalent to Some weeds (some weeds) grow in my backyard.
I understand that context is often sufficient to determine the scope of the noun without a plural indefinite article 1 – but that applies to the singular indefinite article a/an as well. In fact, it seems that a/an is even more redundant, since both Dog barks and Dog barks in my garden are equally indefinite, not generic.
1 Carlson 2001 is further germane analysis. In his previous post, he gives examples of sentences for which context is not sufficient to determine the scope of the null determiner. I only excluded old ladies can mean I excluded all old ladies (generic) or that all those whom I excluded happen to have been old ladies (indefinite – some old ladies may have gotten in after all).
If you want an article with plural nouns, why are you suggesting those plural nouns?
Singular:
A unicorn is a mythical beast.
Plural:
Unicorns are mythical beasts.
You will use definite plural pronouns if you want to refer to a specific group within a larger set.
Because unicorns are mythical creatures, I have lots more to see than I see but no action is needed. Is there any reason for believing that unicorns are real?
What is the key to understanding the world of business?
Is language an evolutionary process?
The origins of the word “the”, aren’t connected with those of “a/an”, so there’s no reason why they should share all characteristics.
As OP says “some” can function as a kind of ‘plural’ for “a” in terms of the “n/an” subset. So can “a few”, “a number of” etc. In some situations, “any” can be used as the pluralised version of “a/an”. I’m not overly concerned about the scope of the term “indefinite article” – it’s just a (sometimes enlightening) name we often use, not a ‘pre-existing’ class into which any given word either falls or doesn’t.
What if multiple AP subjects are required to use a/an from multiple subjects? In some contexts “a” can effectively refer to multiple subjects where “the” implies a single one “….A president should
be allowed to say he’screwed up’ surely? “I’m
not talking about a president, the president shouldn’t have said that!” OP:
More specific addressing OP’s question as to why “AP/AN” can’t be pluralised the same as “the”. Firstly, note that in the above example, “a” is effectively pluralised – as becomes clear when you realise it means “presidents in general” rather than “a randomly selected president”.
What you mean by “Recipe: Mix cloves, cinnamon stick, and apples in a bowl”? Why there is a plural from an apple to an article as a separate essay?
What reasons do you have for using an indefinite article for “one of it,” unless there are more than one of them?
Fourthly, “a” can mean exactly “one”, particularly in contexts associated with ‘countability’ (so can “the” but more in the context of ‘identification’). This makes us leery of using it around plural subjects, because we sense it sits uneaily with ‘one-ness’ of “a”,
which is used for word ‘theorist/puppet and/or name’ of _____________ in adjectives for “”.
In the English language you don’t inflect adjectives by number. Why can’t we inflect articles by numbers? (Unlike French… l’haricot vert. and les haricots vert.)
In most languages indefinite articles stem from the word for one. For instance in French un, or in German ein, In Italian and Spanish uno or in Portuguese um.
That you were born as an English person, you were derived by one. An was the original indefinite article; the shorter a came later when the final “n” was dropped before consonants.
In several languages, the plural form of the indefinite articles is simply formed by applying the noun plural inflection: unos/unas or uns/umas.
In some international languages the indefinite article is plural. Same applies for it, because in some there already are. Italian use the partitive article degli/delle as a substitute and this is probably the origin of the French plural form des.
It is very important for us to understand the ‘last and final step’ at the end of the English language. Remember the way English solved any problem?
In Old English adjectives are different depending on whether the noun they qualify is determined or not.
As one can see, only
the adjective changes:
” “The glad man ” reads
se gld
guma whereas, ” a happy man” is: glda guma.
Mention adjectives with different inflections depending on: – the noun gender (masculine,
feminine, neuter) – the noun being singular
or plural – the four cases (nominative,
accusative, genitive, dative) – whether the reference is
indefinite or indefinite.
So that the same adjective would have to follow either the “definite” declension or one of three “indefinite” declensions.
Is it true
in
some languages that the article is added as a suffix to a noun? Then it often “detaches” and passes in front of the noun. Icelandic is half way through for the definite article in that matter.
As for the Old English indefinite article, my conjecture is that the process never went through for a number of possible reasons:
– The “loss of inflection” of early Middle English won the race
– The plural of “an” was not easy to evolve at that time (the Romance “-s” plural had not imposed itself yet).
In some languages, the need is still there, just as in any other where a specific word emerges for the plural indefinite article. This gap is filled by placeholders such as some or a number of.
Most people agree that Proto Indo European did not use articles on its books. Latin has no kind of article, and Ancient Greek arguably had no indefinite article either – it was using something very much like present-day English some ( – “a certain”). And I believe that Old German didn’t have any article.
How come articles had to appear in many modern Indo European languages in a mutually independent yet very similar manner? Their emergence compensates for slow loss of inflection in these languages. Where can we find modern Germans?
I realize that some is an effective substitute for plural a, but in that case, why is it not considered to be an indefinite article?
Why in English the indefinite articles are an and a ; some, a, and an are classified as determiners.
Is NoAD mac OS X 10 avaliable with Windows 10? If not, then how? “New Oxford American Dictionary 2nd edition. 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc. ) classifies a and the as adjectives.
a /e/ ( an before a vowel sound)
adjective
1. Used when referring to someone or something for the first time in a text or conversation: “A man came out of the room”; “it was an honor to have you”; “We need people with a knowledge of languages. ”
the /i/ /()/ /i/
adjective
1. denoting one or more people or things already mentioned or assumed to be common knowledge: “What’s the matter? “; “call the doctor”; “the phone rang.” “The
NOAD that comes with the Mac OS X 10. 7 (“New Oxford American Dictionary 3rd Edition 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc. ), from 2010. What is the basic distinction between
articles and determiners?
When you are referring to a specific item or specific items, you use the “the”,
like I have the steak.
I
have the steaks or I have the cheese.
When you refer a “nonspecific” product, you use “a” for the singular, like I have
a steak.
When leaving out “A”, if it were me you would
get “Being on Taco Bell.”
How many steaks to eat? How many meats? What’s the difference between a steak and a ham? Why do I love steak? How big is a steak? If you don’t indicate anything about whether there are discrete items, “steak” in this example becomes a non-counted entity, because it is “steak” in this example. In
I have a steak.
What is the collection of discrete items? When you say
I have steaks, what are the reasons?
if you are talking to discrete items it is clear that you are referring to discrete items. If steaks is plural, you have to be able to count them and therefore have to have multiple discrete items. The article isn’t necessary. I are a fisherman.
But I can say, I have a steak.
On Wikipedia, it is written that “Let the English and/or a/an/ and (in some contexts) some.’ The authors of this article give one example of this.” The article isn’t needed to show that you’re talking about discrete items or specific items. In the case of talking about “indefinite objects”, use ”s”, “”, “””
and “‘. “. ” As you said, “/’Indefinite object’. For instance, “indefinite object is 1 piece of 3 pieces whose value equals 1″” (in terms of order)” (emphasis added)
Did Old English have indefinite articles? What is the
type of number ‘one’ in English that uses an, from the old English forms for a “one”?
If a is derived from an, which was derived from the number, there then would not be a plural indefinite article. Are modern english words unique?
The plural indefinite is probably not in use because it would be superfluous given other easier ways of expressing idea of indefinite.
We use spoons for soups in this land though in other lands men drink water straight from the bowl. We speak fluent English, though we have met with people from various other lands as well. But we are not satisfied with food in food. I have never eaten food just before.
We eat our soup in this land… We use a spoon to eat
our soup don’t we, Johnny?
What is the reason for a change in opinion of “Asian” politicians?
My quest started from the well-know but erroneous assumption that the core function of “a/an” is to determine a following noun as indefinite, as the name “indefinite article” suggests.
‘The core function of a/an’ is not to determine the following noun as indefinite but to determine the following noun as an individual entity. All of these are done in this way, and not in the order of a/an. Only after “a/an” determines the following noun as an individual entity can the “indefinite” article determine the following noun as indefinite.
Why is an indefinite article automatically precluded from preceding any plural noun and which is logical, because they are not considered separate entities?
