Eccentrify - Очень сложно!

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July 8th, 2009

10:24 am

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Очень сложно!
So. I've been playing with LiveMocha recently, and correcting submissions from a few Russians, and there's a consistent problem most of them have. The Russian language has no equivalent for "a" or "the". No definite article, no indefinite article. It has "that" and "this", but mostly in the context of "This is my pen" rather than "this pen is mine" (actually, for neuter nouns those two sentences are exactly the same!).

And if you've never thought about it, you may not realise just how complex the use of "a" and "the" is!

So help me out here. I need a simple, canned explanation of "a" and "the" for people who have never even seen the concept before. I basically explain the difference between "general" use ("Do you have a cat?") and specific use ("Where is the cat?"), and try not to talk about edge cases ("Let's take the bus!"). But I could use more perspectives on it :)

(The title, I hope, translates as "Very complicated!", which is how I describe it to the poor dears.)
jai.
.

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Comments

From:	p_cat
Date:	July 8th, 2009 02:39 am (UTC)

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Common nouns (and some proper nouns) take an article.

The definite article, 'the', is restrictive and pertains to a specific item.

The indefinite article, 'a' before a consonant or consonant sound and 'an' before a vowel or a vowel sound, is nonrestrictive and does not pertain to a specific item.

Below are the definitions from the Chicago Manual of Style (which I possibly shouldn't reproduce here but hope it comes under 'fair use').

5.70 Definite article
The definite article points to a definite object that (1) is so well understood that it does not need description (e.g., the package is here is a shortened form of the package that was expected is here); (2) is a thing that is about to be described {the sights in Chicago}; or (3) is important {won the grand prize}. The definite article may precede a singular or a plural noun. Mass nouns may also take the definite article {the evidence} {the herd}.

5.71 Indefinite article
An indefinite article points to nonspecific objects, things, or persons that are not distinguished from the other members of a class. The thing may be singular {a student at Princeton}, or uncountable {a multitude}, or generalized {an idea inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost}.

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From:	tyggerjai
Date:	July 8th, 2009 02:52 am (UTC)

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Yeah, that's pretty much what I've been saying, without the fancy words, thanks!

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From:	p_cat
Date:	July 8th, 2009 02:54 am (UTC)

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It must be a very odd concept to get your head around.

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From:	tyggerjai
Date:	July 8th, 2009 03:00 am (UTC)

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Especially since at a beginner level you're usually introducing it at the same time as the present tense of the verb "to be", which is also significantly lacking in Russian. It exists, but it's only ever used for emphasis. The phrase "This is a dog" in Russian is "This dog". You would only say "This *is* dog" in Russian if someone has just said "That's not a dog!"

Oiy. Crazy fucking Russians.

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From:	sly_girl
Date:	July 8th, 2009 03:28 am (UTC)

There are no Welsh words for yes or no

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I love the recursiveness of the definitions: The definite article points to a definite object ...

They're just such omnipresent creatures that removing them completely seems an impossible concept in English.

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From:	tyggerjai
Date:	July 8th, 2009 04:20 am (UTC)

Re: There are no Welsh words for yes or no

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Chinese doesn't have "yes" or "no" either. Actually, Chinese doesn't have articles, come to think of it.

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From:	thorfinn
Date:	July 8th, 2009 07:33 am (UTC)

Re: There are no Welsh words for yes or no

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Yep. It has correct/incorrect, and it has a boolean "not" modifier for verbs.

"I can has cheezeburger" and "I not can has cheezeburger" is perfect Chinese grammar. :-)

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From:	sly_girl
Date:	July 8th, 2009 08:14 am (UTC)

Re: There are no Welsh words for yes or no

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Which explains why cats are always going "Mao!"

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From:	sly_girl
Date:	July 8th, 2009 08:19 am (UTC)

Re: There are no Welsh words for yes or no

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Aha, there we go - found it on a t-shirt

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From:	qamar
Date:	July 8th, 2009 06:16 am (UTC)

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Get them a copy of Bertrand Russell "On Denoting" that has been translated into Russian? :)

I had a Korean housemate who struggled with the same issue. I found it very, very tricky to give necessary and sufficient conditions.

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From:	tyggerjai
Date:	July 8th, 2009 06:23 am (UTC)

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Ooh! In the first paragraph, in fact - For example, in the expression ‘John is a lawyer’ it is often claimed that ‘a lawyer’ is not a genuine description, but is rather something different — a predicate for example.

In fact, in Russian it would be understood that it is a predicate, and the sentence would be rendered "John -- lawyer". Because Russian tends not to use the verb "to be"; usually it's silently dropped, but in sentences where the predicate is a noun, it's replaced with a dash. So yeah, they'd be all about "It's not a description, it's a predicate".

Uh, anyway. Not sure how helpful it is beyond that. A Russian translation of a book about things that don't exist in the Russian language would be a fascinating read, though.

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From:	sly_girl
Date:	July 8th, 2009 06:47 am (UTC)

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There's an essay in there about how restraints of language help shape thought and therefore philosophy, but I think George Orwell already wrote it.

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From:	tyggerjai
Date:	July 8th, 2009 06:51 am (UTC)

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Or possibly Wittgenstein.

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Eccentrify!