Comment by tenebrisalietum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tenebrisalietum | Hacker News Reader

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tenebrisalietum

There's the StackExchange English Language Learner's board - ell.stackexchange.com; while not an English or liguistics expert, I participate there, and questions on articles are common.

- English generally wants singular nouns tagged with a determiner unless the noun is being used to refer to the type of something rather than an instance of something, or in more than a few fixed prepositional phrases.

- Determiners, including articles, signify the importance and expectation around the question "which X".

- Definite articles are a signal to the listener/reader that the they should know which X the speaker/writer means. That's all. It has nothing to do with "specificity" as often explained by others. If the listener/reader doesn't know typically they will be triggered to ask.

- The indefinite article is a signal to the listener/reader that they don't have to know or care about "which X". It will trigger a listener/reader not to ask or wonder.

- Proper nouns don't take articles because usually the question "which John?", for example, isn't a concern.

> Proper nouns don't take articles because usually the question "which John?", for example, isn't a concern.

And they do take articles when the question is a concern, in exactly the same way as other nouns. E.g., (for a highly contrived example) “The John Smith in the story of Pocahontas is not the John Smith found in a contemporary register of tradesmen in London discovered last week”.

I can basically agree with those generalizations, but in particular I've always been puzzled why British English tends to use "hospital" without any determiner, but American (really, U.S.) English almost always does. As a native US English speaker, I don't think I've heard one of my compatriots say something like "he was injured and taken to hospital." Always has "the" (without regard to the audience knowing which hospital) or "a" but I've virtually never heard an article used in British English.

I feel this one's fairly arbitrary, but "taken to hospital" at least lines up with how we talk about other public places in a generic, consumer-of-public-services sense in British English. Besides "taken to hospital", you can be "at university", "on your way to school", or "in prison", for example.

If you worked at one of those institutions, though, you'd add an article and be specific - you work "at the university" or "at the hospital". (You'd expect the listener to infer that you mean the specific university/hospital in the area, assuming there is only one.)

Edit: More colloquially, we also have "going into town" (no article, even though it's probably a specific town that is clear from context!)

The article-less usage only seems to work for generic places (hospital/school/prison/university). It doesn't belong with a noun that refers to a person but also sort-of-refers to that person's place of business. You're "going to the doctor" or "the dentist" or "the hairdresser" - never "going to doctor". This is despite the specificity often being superfluous here - the listener might not know/care which dentist you use!

It’s the general vs a specific instance.

He’s gone to hospital. (Hospital is abstract, we don’t necessarily know which one)

He’s gone to the hospital. (A specific hospital, either inferring which one by context or prior knowledge)

School, university, and prison are all institutions. Stay in school, go to university, stay out of prison.

You don't go to store though, hang out at mall, meet at restaurant, or go to bar for a drink.

I think the difference between the two usages is considering "hospital" an institution.

I also don't think a vs the requires the listener to know which specific place you're talking about, it seems to also communicate that the speaker knows what place they're talking about. "I'm going to the store to buy carrots" vs "I'm going to a store to buy carrots." Someone knows vs no one knows.

It's not arbitrary at all, at least in my dialect. "He went to hospital" and "he went to the hospital" mean different things. The first implies that he was a patient, he was there for the purpose for which the hospital exists, the second implies he went to that location for some other reason (such as bringing flowers, or working there).

Likewise "went to school" (as a scoolchild) vs "went to the school" (to collect someone, or to teach). "At university" (a student) vs "at the university" (physical location, for any reason). "Went to prison" (as a criminal) vs. "went to the prison" (to visit his brother, or to fix their telephones). "Does she go to church?" (to church services) vs. "did you go to the church?" (to see the stained glass).

"Go to the doctor" is a bit different, the doctor isn't an institution, he's a person. Although I think that implies you went for medical reasons, if you stopped by to pick up some paperwork, you might say "I have to stop at the doctor's" i.e. his rooms. But maybe that's also because you would probably talk to the receptionist anyway. But "went to the barber" implies you had a shave, while you might "stop at the barber's" to pick someone up.

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