Comment by zvrba | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zvrba | Hacker News Reader

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> I'm curious how you can figure out from context whether you can figure out something from context.

Erm, memory? You remember whether something has been introduced or not.

Take a hypothetical phone conversation, an example that nobody has managed to explain to me satisfactorily: A: "Where are you?" B: "I'm in [the/a/(nothing)] shower."

People tell me that "the" is the correct thing to use. But A is none the wiser; B could be at home, in a gym, at work... A is none the wiser about _which_ shower B is in and the shower has not been introduced previously in the conversation. It's tautological "the", B is in that shower that he's currently using, so he could just as well say "I'm in shower".

Or, similarly: A: "Where's my food?" B: "I've put it in fridge." If A is at work, he'd go looking into fridge at office. If at home, he'd go look into fridge in kitchen. If there are two fridges nearby, he'd ask "Which one?"

Even though I deliberately omitted "the/a" in the previous paragraph, I don't think you got confused about _which_ office or _which_ kitchen fridge A would go looking in. And personally I cannot imagine that A, upon hearing "it's in fridge" while being in the office, would go home and look into the fridge at home. Or that he'd even have to ask "which fridge?" if there only were one at office.

So there's an attempted answer.

EDIT: one of my rules of thumb is: if I can put "some" in front of a noun without changing the meaning, then it's most probably appropriate to use "a".

> Erm, memory? You remember whether something has been introduced or not.

This doesn't work in English, because both speakers are not assumed to have the same knowledge of context. The "the"/"a" distinguishes between something that describes and something that also determines.

Alice: Did you see any of those movies?

Bob: I saw the good one.

In this sentence, Bob is saying that "good one" can be figured out from context. In other words, Bob is saying that there is only one good movie in "those movies". Alice may or may not be aware of this from context, but she has learned that Bob thinks that there is only one good movie in "those movies".

Bob: I saw a good one.

In this sentence, Bob is saying that "good one" describes the movie he saw, but he is not saying that this determines which one he saw. He is not making claims about context.

This is an example where it plays a role. In Slavic languages, you would say something like “I saw that good one” (inserting a definitive article substitute) or “the one I saw was good”; in English, you don’t need the latter phrasing with “a”; indeed, it is somewhat artificial example.

What the parent post was saying was well described by his examples of where the article is obviously superfluous and doesn’t provide contextual information - which is the majority of their uses. There are situations where articles carry information (nobody disputes that I think), but they are used far more frequently as grammatical filler.

Ha, there's a difference between

“I saw that good one” -- translated to Croatian, this wording strongly implies that both knew upfront which movie was good and he watched only that one. But according to the parent's explanation it may not be the case, Alice has only learned that one of the movies was good.

and

"The one I saw was good" (he picked a random movie from the collection and it happened to be good -- which would be "a good one" from the parent's example).

Ah, finally an example where "the" does convey some extra information. However,

> Bob: I saw the good one.

Weird. Before I read your explanation I interpreted this as Alice and Bob having a prior mutual understanding about which of the movies was good and Alice immediately knows the particular movie he saw. Also, she knows that he decided upfront to watch (only) that movie.

EDIT: last point, if they don't have a prior understanding about which movie is "good", Bob would have to have watched _all_ of them to be able to say "THE good one". (Because, if he only watched a subset, an unwatched movie could be better than those he watched and would make him change his mind about which one is "good").

> she has learned that Bob thinks that there is only one good movie in "those movies".

According to your explanation, she still doesn't know _which_ movie he saw. She knows that only one was good and that it was the movie he saw. But then you could just say "I watched good one".

> "I saw a good one"

.. here, he picked a movie at random and it happened to be good. Yay, "a" does make a difference! :)

> It's tautological "the"

It's the (sorry) obligatory "the", because "the shower" has been lexicalized. This is very intimate, because the situation in which one talks about the shower, especially when still learning the language, will virtually always be at home with family. But enough talk. I will go to bed ... to bed myself. First I will go to the shower, an' shower, though. It's overall very unlikely I will have an in-shower phone call.

The given explanation is not satisfying. There's a difference between rhetorics and grammar. The common denominator is syntax (phonology, too, to a degree) but it differs between vocal and written speech. The semantics are the same, but you can take a look at the wiktionary page of [a] to get an idea of how diverse that is.

[a] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a

>Erm, memory? You remember whether something has been introduced or not.

Not a very reliable tool. At least "bring THE table" introduces some error correction in the sentence.

- "Come by the shop tomorrow. And bring THE table".

(confused by the explicit "THE", the error correction kicks in:)

- "Huh? What table?"

- "The one we talked about last week on the phone",

- "A, yes!"

Then why not use 'THAT' and 'ANY' instead?

Also, in your example, what is the purpose of referencing particular phone with 'THE'? Why not just 'on phone'?

NB. Just like zvrba I was (still am) having troubles with As and THEs. Baltic language speaker here btw.

>Then why not use 'THAT' and 'ANY' instead?

For variety. Why not just wear black everyday?

> Not a very reliable tool.

Exactly. Alternatively (note the missing "THE")

> "Come by the shop tomorrow. And bring table"

then, confused by seemingly nonsensical request of bringing some table along [why "some" -- because he doesn't remember the earlier conversation]: "Huh? Why, what table?"

As rytis pointed out, if the "sender" wants to emphasize the context, he'd say "And bring THAT table."

On the other hand, if the sender and receiver are thinking of a particular, but _different_ table, neither "table", nor "THE table", nor "THAT table" helps. (E.g., the receiver has one table that needs painting and one that needs to have its leg replaced, where "the" for the sender is the first and for the receiver the second table.)

A rule I heard was about abstract nouns requiring the article. It is not a strict rule, it seems, and what is abstract or not could be a matter of debate. In line with the OP notion something abstract would be exactly something that was not known. So here, the whole scenario is "the table". It's not any old table. In the speakers mind it is the sole reason of the listeners existence.

"hello, table?"

"Yes, this is table speaking"

"Is it still there?"

"Yes, it is here?"

"good good. bring it, table!"

It seems almost as if "it" and "the", highly underspecific terms are way more complicated in nature and thus have to repeated often to remind us ... just as much as egoists tend to speak a lot of "I", which I tend to avoid when I write my own texts because I do know who I am talking to. That is, "come" is usually preceded by "you", to address the recipient. "you come" is a full sentence. It's regularly binding "here", but if "here" needs to be specified, the verb is "come by". The object is a new phrase, and to set that off with the appropriate contrast, we simply use an article. Otherwise, "come to shop" would appear like a compound verb. Indeed, "come to town" is idiomatic, and that's lexicalized as a compound word (collocation) as seen in "homecoming". While "bring" is usually bound to "me" (or here, eventually, as the difference is minimal). It wouldn't be "table bringing". You don't address the table itself to bring itself. The table doesn't belong to the noun, the subject of the verb - not anymore. The status of the table is kind of unclear and that's the whole point. It already changed ownership as it seems, but didn't change hands yet. The "the" then is a placeholder for a qualifier. It is the most simple place holder next "a" or nothing. It should change to "my", and since we also have "(to) me" in scope, that would actually be very apt. "Bring my table". Is that one also objectionable? Diplomatically, you'd say "your table". The article is used to show that' you want to be specific, but not too specific yet. In essence, it changes only changes the scope. If it didn't and if it was clear that you have (are) the table, then it would be enough to say "you bring!" And people really do or did talk like that. "I'm hungry, cook!" "Answer! I wanna have an answer. You answer" "guard, guard!". etc. etc.

I'm just making that up. Never mind.

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