A/the monastery

[Rachel Adams]

Hello.
Should I use the definite or indefinite article before ''monastery''? If I am not mistaken, there are a few monasteries of the Assumption of the Virgin. In the second sentence I removed the article and used ''monk's monastery'' instead.

1.We will also visit a monastery of the Assumption of the Virgin.

2.We will also visit monk's monastery of the Assumption of the Virgin.

 

[Rover_KE]

#1 can't be used in isolation as a standalone sentence. You will already have stated your destination and there will only be one such monastery there, so use 'the'.

Without an article, #2 is ungrammatical and monk's makes it tautologous. The position of the apostrophe would mean that only one monk lives there.

(Cross-posted)

Please note that I added a word to your title to help us to find your thread later. There's no limit to a thread title's word count.

***

I tried to think of a context where 'a' would work, and came up with this:

#101 on my bucket list is to visit a Monastery of the Assumption of the Virgin.

Even then, I'd be more likely to say '... to visit one of the Monasteries of the Assumption of the Virgin'.

 

[Yankee]

Hello.
Should I use the definite or indefinite article before ''monastery''? If I am not mistaken, there are a few monasteries of the Assumption of the Virgin. In the second sentence I removed the article and used ''monk's monastery'' instead.

1.We will also visit a monastery of the Assumption of the Virgin. If the listener/reader understands that there are more than one, "a" is OK. Context. But in a certain other context, with "a" could suggest specific differentiation between a monastery versus, for example, a seminary, church etc.

2.We will also visit monk's monastery of the Assumption of the Virgin. If the monastery were the only one, the "m"'s should be capitalized for the reader. For the listener (me), no article would suggest the only monastery. And with "a" OK, but it would not be clear to me whether there was one or more.

My shot.