Situational estimation of article uses
Communicative context
n Human language is the product of human society, it is the perfect means of human communication. The communicative function which is the primary socially conditioned one, presupposes mental, speech and communicative activities in the process of social intercourse.
n The communicative function of language is realized under the appropriate conditions of the communicative context, i. e. the complex of different objective and subjective factors which influence the realization of the function by either favouring or restricting the process of speech communication.
n There are two types of communicative context. The macro communicative context is represented by the social and cultural conditions of communication. The social status of the communicants, their cultural and philosophical outlook are the background factors which lay constraints on the communicative use of language.
n The micro communicative context is the very objective speech situation in which the process of speech communication takes place.
n Communicative grammatical theories deal with the speech conditions and with the processes of speech communication which predetermine the effectiveness of the communicative use of language.
n According to the principles of the general "speech act" theory the communicative speech situation can be conventionally subdivided into the three spheres centering round the main components of such situations:
n - the sphere of speaking with the Speaker as its center,
n - the sphere of hearing with the Hearer (Addressee) in its centre;
n - the lingually coded message or the Text.
Nuclear and Periphery
n The system of language displays systemic characteristics in the mode of its organization. As any systemic organization the system of language has the core /nuclear/andthe periphery. The core of the system is represented by the stock of those elements which possess the typologically differential features characteristic of the elements of the given system. The peripheral elements have weakened differential features and may be migrants from other systemic arrangements. Some linguists consider"sphericity" and"nucleation" to be the mode of the language organization.
n Accordingly, the system of language is parted into separate spheres or subsystems each of which displays systemic characteristics too: Grammar, Lexicon, Phonetics.
Article Determination
n Article is a determining unit of specific nature accompanying the noun in communicative collocations. Its special character is clearly seen in comparison with the words of half-notional semantics such as this, any, some, etc. These determiners interpret the referent of the noun in relation to other objects or phenomena of a like kind, whereas the semantic purpose of the article is to specify the nounal referent in the most general way, without any explicitly expressed contrasts.
n Another peculiarity of the article, as different from the determiners in question, is that, in the absence of a determiner, the use of the article with the noun is quite obligatory.
n Taking into consideration these peculiar features of the article, it’s important to determine its status in the system of morphology, namely to decide whether the article is a purely auxiliary element of a special grammatical form of the noun which functions as a component of a definite morphological category, or it is a separate word, i.e. a lexical unit in the determiner word set, of a more abstract meaning than other determiners.
n Another peculiarity of the article, as different from the determiners in question, is that, in the absence of a determiner, the use of the article with the noun is quite obligatory.
n Taking into consideration these peculiar features of the article, it’s important to determine its status in the system of morphology, namely to decide whether the article is a purely auxiliary element of a special grammatical form of the noun which functions as a component of a definite morphological category, or it is a separate word, i.e. a lexical unit in the determiner word set, of a more abstract meaning than other determiners.
Semantic evaluation
n A mere semantic observation of the articles in English, i.e. the definite article the and the indefinite article an, at once discloses not two, but three meaningful characterizations of the nounal referent achieved by their correlative functioning, namely: one rendered by the definite article, one rendered by the indefinite article, and one rendered by the absence (or non-use) of the article. Let us examine them separately.
n The definite article expresses the identification or individualization of the referent of the noun: the use of this article shows that the object denoted is taken in its concrete, individual quality.
n This meaning can be brought to explicit exposition by a substitution test. The test consists in replacing the article used in a construction by a demonstrative word, e.g. a demonstrative determiner, without causing a principal change in the general implication of the construction. Of course, such an "equivalent" substitution should be understood in fact as nothing else but analogy: the difference in meaning between a determiner and an article admits of no argument. Still, the replacements of words as a special diagnostic procedure, which is applied with the necessary reservations and according to a planned scheme of research, is quite permissible. In this case it undoubtedly shows a direct relationship in the meanings of the determiner and the article, the relationship in which the determiner is semantically the more explicit element of the two.
n Cf.: But look at the apple-tree!-* But look at this apple-tree!
n The town lay still in the Indian summer sun.— That town lay still in the Indian summer sun.
n The water is horribly hot.— This water is horribly hot.
n It's the girls who are to blame.— It's those girls who are to blame.
n The indefinite article, as different from the definite article, is commonly interpreted as referring the object denoted by the noun to a certain class of similar objects; in other words, the indefinite article expresses a classifying generalization of the nounal referent, or takes it in a relatively general sense.
n To prove its relatively generalizing functional meaning, we may use the diagnostic insertions of specifying-classifying phrases into the construction in question; we may also employ the transformation of implicit comparative constructions with the indefinite article into the corresponding explicit comparative constructions.
n Cf.: We passed a water-mill. —We passed a certain water-mill.
n It is a very young country, isn't it?- It is a very young kind of country, isn't it?
n What an arrangement! —What sort of arrangement!
n This child is a positive nightmare. -— This child is positively like a nightmare.
n The procedure of a classifying contrast employed in practical text-books exposes the generalizing nature of the indefinite article most clearly in many cases of its use.
n E.g.: A door opened in the wall. — A door (not a window) opened in the wall.
n We saw a flower under the bush.-* We saw a flower (not a strawberry) under
n the bush.
n As for the various uses of nouns without an article, from the semantic point of
n view they all should be divided into two types. In the first place, there are uses where the articles are deliberately omitted out of stylistic considerations. We see such uses, for instance, in telegraphic speech, in titles and headlines, in various notices.
n E.g.: Telegram received room. reserved for week end. (The text of a telegram.) Conference adjourned until further notice. (The text of an announcement.) Big red bus rushes food to strikers. (The title of a newspaper article.)
n The purposeful elliptical omission of the article in cases like that is quite obvious, and the omitted articles may easily be restored in the constructions in the simplest "back-directed" refilling procedures.
n C/.: — The telegram is received, a room is reserved for the week-end. ...—> The conference is adjourned until further notice. ...— A big red bus rushes food to the strikers.
n Alongside of free elliptical constructions, there are cases of the semantically unspecified non-use of the article in various combinations of fixed type, such as prepositional phrases (on fire, at hand, in debt, etc.), fixed verbal collocations [take place, make use, cast anchor, etc.), descriptive coordina-tive groups and repetition groups (man and wife, dog and gun, day by day, etc.), and the like.
n The absence of the article with uncountable nouns, as well as with countable nouns in the plural, renders the meaning of "uncharacterized generalization", as different from the meaning of "absolute generalization", achieved by the absence of the article with countable nouns in the singular.
Situational estimation of article uses
As to the situational estimation of the article uses, we must point out that the basic principle of their differentiation here is not a direct consideration of their meanings, but disclosing the informational characteristics that the article conveys to its noun in concrete contextual conditions. Examined from this angle, the definite article serves as an indicator of the type of nounal information which is presented as the "facts already known", i.e. as the starting point of the communication. In contrast to this, the indefinite article or the meaningful absence of the article introduces the central communicative nounal part of the sentence, i.e. the part rendering the immediate informative data to be conveyed from the speaker to the listener.
n In the situational study of syntax the starting point of the communication is called its "theme", while the central informative part is called its "rheme".
n In accord with the said situational functions, the typical syntactic position of the noun modified by the definite article is the “Thematic” subject, while the typical syntactic position of the noun modified be the indefinite article or by the meaninful absense of the article is the “rhematic” predicative.