An inventory of some materials (mostly from Language Log) on arthrous and anarthrous nominals (with and without the definite article, respectively) in English:
AZ, SemFest handout “Isolated NPs”, 3/12/04: (link) [related to anarthrousness, but mostly distinct from it]
GP, 11/7/04: Renowned author Dan Brown staggered through his formulaic opening sentence: (link) [anarthrous occupation + personal name]
GP, 3/12/06: Pretty girl visiting your town: (link) [anarthrousness in non-native English]
Lynne Murphy on University of X versus X University: (link)
GP, 8/7/06: Dan Brown news update: (link) [see “Renowned author Dan Brown”]
AZ, 9/2/06: What’s the name of your university?: (link) [university names; prepositional names are generally arthrous, though that isn’t explicitly discussed here]
AZ, 9/3/06: University name bulletins: (link) [university names]
AZ, 9/5/06: The the in The Ohio State University: (link)
AZ, 9/5/06: Manchester mouse born from mountain: (link) [university names]
GP, 2/15/07: In (the) future: (link)|
Lynne Murphy on ‘the’ in front of ‘hospital’ and some medical conditions: (link)
GP, 8/28/07: Syntax under pressure: (link) [arthrousness in country names]
GP, 9/16/07: Language Log is strong: (link) [proper names]
AZ, 9/17/07: (an)arthrous abbreviations: (link)
ML, 9/23/07: Bagatelling around: (link) [anarthrous mere bagatelle]
AZ, 9/30/07: Language Log only pretty strong: (link)
AZ, 11/8/07: The Google: (link)
GP, 12/13/07: Antarctic WTF: (link) [anarthrous Abandon ship! – telegraphic anarthrousness]
ML, 1/22/10: Ask Language Log: “On point”: (link)
ML, 3/10/10: Around the water cooler: (link) [anarthrous variants internet]
March 14, 2011 at 8:32 am |
[…] Arnold Zwicky's Blog A blog mostly about language « Arthrousness […]
March 14, 2011 at 11:53 pm |
Thanks for this. I commented on the absence of the definite article in some expressions on my own blog last month, but didn’t know there was a word for it.
March 31, 2011 at 10:40 pm |
Another instance: Ivory Coast.