Countable in singular used without articles. Apple pie, red car, picked fence.

[Vladv1]

I wonder about the cases when normally countable nouns in singular in its countable meaning are used without an article. I know of two cases.
1. In pairs with and , " Peasant and noble, soldier and civillan, all loved the new mayor"
2. I 've heard some native speaker describe a typical american family and he said something like this; "Apple pie, red car, picked fence, they were a typical family". Why does apple pie, red car are used without an article here? Is it because it is something typical?
3. Could you please provide any other cases where countable in singular without aritcles.

 

[BobK]

Type 1 is quite common in idiomatic phrases: 'Man and boy, he has always been a tory', 'she was a hoarder from cradle to grave', 'womb to tomb...', 'time and time again...' (='often/repeatedly')

Type 2 - you're right, it marks something that's typical. Incidentally, it's 'picket': 'picked' one syllable, is the past of 'pick'; 'picket' has two syllables - /'pɩkɩt/

 

[Vladv]

Type 1 is quite common in idiomatic phrases: 'Man and boy, he has always been a tory', 'she was a hoarder from cradle to grave', 'womb to tomb...', 'time and time again...' (='often/repeatedly')

Type 2 - you're right, it marks something that's typical. Incidentally, it's 'picket': 'picked' one syllable, is the past of 'pick'; 'picket' has two syllables - /'pɩkɩt/

Could you please give more examples of type 2.

 

[jutfrank]

I would say the main use in what we're calling the Type 2 (apple pie) example, and which is also a more general rule of use, is listing items. The fact that apple pies and picket fences are emblematic is not relevant, I don't think. Every time I leave my house, I make a mental checklist: keys, wallet, phone.

With Type 1, yes, the lack of article shows a generic notion of sorts, where peasant, noble, civilian, etc. are mere lables. Other cases of labelling: push button, insert coin, etc.

So to sum up, listing and labelling are the main reasons why we drop articles before singular countable nouns, in my opinion. Another obvious one in written English is in newspaper headlines.

 

[emsr2d2]

I wonder have a question about the cases when normally countable nouns are used in the singular in its (but still with their countable meaning) are used without an article. I know of two cases.

1. In pairs with "and", such as " Peasant and noble, soldier and civilian, all loved the new mayor."

2. I've heard a native speaker describe a typical American family and he said as/with something like this; "Apple pie, red car, picket fence; they were a typical family". Why does are "apple pie", "red car" and "picket fence" are used without an article here? Is it because it is they are something typically American?

3. Could you please provide any other cases where a countable noun can be used in the singular without an article?

Please note my corrections above.

 

[Vladv]

I would say the main use in what we're calling the Type 2 (apple pie) example, and which is also a more general rule of use, is listing items. The fact that apple pies and picket fences are emblematic is not relevant, I don't think. Every time I leave my house, I make a mental checklist: keys, wallet, phone.

With Type 1, yes, the lack of article shows a generic notion of sorts, where peasant, noble, civilian, etc. are mere lables. Other cases of labelling: push button, insert coin, etc.

So to sum up, listing and labelling are the main reasons why we drop articles before singular countable nouns, in my opinion. Another obvious one in written English is in newspaper headlines.

What about this example I heard. " We went to see the prolerty-decent house, decent neioghbourhood". Also, can't grasp the concept of labelling.

 

[emsr2d2]

What about this example I heard?

End all questions with a question mark.

"We went to see the prolerty-decent house, decent neioghbourhood".

Don't put a space after opening quotation marks. Neither of the underlined words exists in English. I can't imagine what "prolerty-decent" (a hyphenated adjective) could possibly mean or how it could describe a house.
You need to install an English spell checker on your browser to avoid these sorts of errors.

Also, I can't grasp the concept of labelling.

I have no idea what this means.

 

[Vladv1]

Sorry. I meant to write ""We went to see the property-decent house, decent neighbourhood"

 

[Annabel Lee]

1. In pairs with and , " Peasant and noble, soldier and civillan, all loved the new mayor"

With Type 1, yes, the lack of article shows a generic notion of sorts, where peasant, noble, civilian, etc. are mere lables. Other cases of labelling: push button, insert coin, etc.

Two famous poetic examples that are seemingly of this type come to mind:

"The voice I hear this passing night was heard​

In ancient days by emperor and clown:" (John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale," 1819, penultimate stanza)​

"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,​

Or busy housewife ply her evening care:" (Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," 1751, 6th stanza)​

My grammatical suspicion about the Thomas Gray example, however, has long been that it involves a fancy type of ellipsis known as "determiner sharing." Determiner sharing may be another type of case for you to add to your inventory. Here are a couple of examples from James McCawley's article "Gapping with Shared Operators." It is McCawley who is credited with having discovering this type of ellipsis from a formal syntactic standpoint.

"The Temple of Dragon, for example, whose exterior is seen in act one and interior in act three, rivals a movie set." ​

​

"While any trumpet was blowing or drum beating . . ."​

 

[Vladv1]

Two famous poetic examples that are seemingly of this type come to mind:

"The voice I hear this passing night was heard​

In ancient days by emperor and clown:" (John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale," 1819, penultimate stanza)​

"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,​

Or busy housewife ply her evening care:" (Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," 1751, 6th stanza)​

My grammatical suspicion about the Thomas Gray example, however, has long been that it involves a fancy type of ellipsis known as "determiner sharing." Determiner sharing may be another type of case for you to add to your inventory. Here are a couple of examples from James McCawley's article "Gapping with Shared Operators." It is McCawley who is credited with having discovering this type of ellipsis from a formal syntactic standpoint.

"The Temple of Dragon, for example, whose exterior is seen in act one and interior in act three, rivals a movie set." ​

​

"While any trumpet was blowing or drum beating . . ."​

Thanks a lot for the detailed explanation. Really appreciate it! Could you give more fancy examples of determiner sharing please?

 

[Vladv1]

When we talk about one person who has several talents we always omit "a"? "He is a writer and philosopher". Why don't we say "He is writer and philosoher"?

End all questions with a question mark.

Don't put a space after opening quotation marks. Neither of the underlined words exists in English. I can't imagine what "prolerty-decent" (a hyphenated adjective) could possibly mean or how it could describe a house.
You need to install an English spell checker on your browser to avoid these sorts of errors.

I have no idea what this means.

 

[Annabel Lee]

Could you give more fancy examples of determiner sharing please?

Well, I can try, but Determiner Sharing is the most daring variety of ellipsis that I know of, and I hardly ever use it.

Here are two variations on the Thomas Gray subtype, where a negative adverbial of time is fronted:

(a) Never again did a dog bark, or cat meow, inside that house.​

​

(b) Not once has a carpenter been needed or plumber been called.​

​

Regarding the "whose" subtype, a while back I noticed what appears to be a grammatical error in the poem "The New Colossus," by Emma Lazarus, which adorns the base of the Statue of Liberty. Beginning at line 3, she writes:

"Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand​

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame​

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name​

Mother of Exiles. [. . .]"​

Grammatically, one would expect "whose" where "her" is, but then the ellipsis of "is" would be ungrammatical:

*whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and whose name Mother of Exiles​

whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and whose name is Mother of Exiles​

However, it seems to me that Determiner Sharing could save the day. She could simply have used neither her nor whose:

(c) whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and name Mother of Exiles​

​

That said, there are considerations of poetic meter which render that grammatical fix problematic.

 

[emsr2d2]

Sorry. I meant to write ""We went to see the property-decent house, decent neighbourhood"

That leaves you still with the problem of the incorrect spacing around the dash. If you use a hyphen and don't put a space on either side of it, you're connecting the two words. You still appear to be using "property-decent" as an adjective to refer to "house". You need to change the spacing to:

We went to the see the property - decent house, decent neighbourhood.

 

[Vladv1]

I would say the main use in what we're calling the Type 2 (apple pie) example, and which is also a more general rule of use, is listing items. The fact that apple pies and picket fences are emblematic is not relevant, I don't think. Every time I leave my house, I make a mental checklist: keys, wallet, phone.

With Type 1, yes, the lack of article shows a generic notion of sorts, where peasant, noble, civilian, etc. are mere lables. Other cases of labelling: push button, insert coin, etc.

So to sum up, listing and labelling are the main reasons why we drop articles before singular countable nouns, in my opinion. Another obvious one in written English is in newspaper headlines.

Why are the articles not used in "push button, insert coin"? Does it only happen with something that is on a digital display?

 

[emsr2d2]

Why are the articles not used in "push button, insert coin"? Does it only happen with something that is on a digital display?

It's simply to save space. If we added articles to everything in an instruction, it would run to a lot of characters. It's not just on digital displays. You'll see it in printed instruction manuals, on stickers on products etc.

 

[jutfrank]

Why are the articles not used in "push button, insert coin"?

I'd say it's because they're not needed. It's not really about saving space. The close proximity of any label to the thing it's labelling is sufficient for there never to be any problem with understanding the reference.

Does it only happen with something that is on a digital display?

No.

 

[emsr2d2]

I'd say it's because they're not needed. It's not really about saving space. The close proximity of any label to the thing it's labelling is sufficient for there never to be any problem with understanding the reference.

I agree that it makes no difference to understanding but I think it's important for learners to know that "Push button" isn't grammatically correct in a normal sentence or conversation.

 

[Vladv1]

I'd say it's because they're not needed. It's not really about saving space. The close proximity of any label to the thing it's labelling is sufficient for there never to be any problem with understanding the reference.



No.

Should it be used only with a verb in imperative before the noun? Please give examples where the verb is not in imperative.

 

[emsr2d2]

Should it be used only with a verb in the imperative before the noun? Please give examples where the verb is not in the imperative.

Sure.

You can drink water.

There you go. That's a sentence where the verb isn't in the imperative and no article is required. I have a feeling that's not what you're looking for though.

 

[jutfrank]

You don't necessarily need any verb:

LIFT OUT OF ORDER
TOILETS DOWNSTAIRS
ENTRANCE ON BROOK STREET

The imperative mood is used only in an instruction to do something.