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Guest Posted 23 years ago
Grammar
(a) lack of
I am trying to explain to someone the role of the indefinite and the definite article before the noun "lack": a lack of, the lack of, lack of.
I am no linguist so I decided to collect examples of the usage of "lack", group them according to the article that goes with "lack" meaningwise, and attempt to draw some conclusions.
What I am doing is I am taking a sentence with "lack of" and trying to alter the meaning of the original by manipulating the article. For example:
"The picture is bleak. (1) Another company announced a layoff yesterday because of a lack of demand for their products and weak sales in Q3". The sentence sounds OK, they suffer from some lack of demand. The lack was not complete, they still managed to sell something - I am NOT using the "weak sales in Q3" to say that the lack is not complete.
(2)"Another company announced a layoff yesterday because of a devastating lack of demand for their products..."This is also OK, devastation may vary in intensity of form; a devastating lack is just one of many possible "devastating lacks".
(3) "Another company announced a layoff yesterday because of lack of demand for their products… "This sentence again feels good, but the lack may be complete and total, meaning they didn't sell anything. Am I going too far?
(4)"Another company announced a layoff yesterday because of the lack of demand for their products…." (This is the first mention of the lack of demand).
This sounds fine too. What would that mean though? To me it can mean either the same as (1) or the same as (3), I am not partial to either.
I am afraid I am not doing very well in the conclusion department. The more I think about it, the more puzzled I am. Do you agree with my interpretations above?
Can you think of other specific examples that would illustrate the change in meaning due to the change or omission of the article before "lack of"?
Any ideas will be welcome.
Best,
Bar
I am no linguist so I decided to collect examples of the usage of "lack", group them according to the article that goes with "lack" meaningwise, and attempt to draw some conclusions.
What I am doing is I am taking a sentence with "lack of" and trying to alter the meaning of the original by manipulating the article. For example:
"The picture is bleak. (1) Another company announced a layoff yesterday because of a lack of demand for their products and weak sales in Q3". The sentence sounds OK, they suffer from some lack of demand. The lack was not complete, they still managed to sell something - I am NOT using the "weak sales in Q3" to say that the lack is not complete.
(2)"Another company announced a layoff yesterday because of a devastating lack of demand for their products..."This is also OK, devastation may vary in intensity of form; a devastating lack is just one of many possible "devastating lacks".
(3) "Another company announced a layoff yesterday because of lack of demand for their products… "This sentence again feels good, but the lack may be complete and total, meaning they didn't sell anything. Am I going too far?
(4)"Another company announced a layoff yesterday because of the lack of demand for their products…." (This is the first mention of the lack of demand).
This sounds fine too. What would that mean though? To me it can mean either the same as (1) or the same as (3), I am not partial to either.
I am afraid I am not doing very well in the conclusion department. The more I think about it, the more puzzled I am. Do you agree with my interpretations above?
Can you think of other specific examples that would illustrate the change in meaning due to the change or omission of the article before "lack of"?
Any ideas will be welcome.
Best,
Bar
Top answer
Hello Interesting question. I'm not an expert, but I'll offer an opinion, and hopefully someone can give you a more satisfactory technical explanation later. My feeling would be that the choice of 'the' or 'a' depends on the degree of knowledge in the target audience.
- Hello Interesting question.
- I'm not an expert, but I'll offer an opinion, and hopefully someone can give you a more satisfactory technical explanation later.
- My feeling would be that the choice of 'the' or 'a' depends on the degree of knowledge in the target audience.
- Do they understand which particular lack you are referring to?
- If they are industry figures, "the lack" will probably be well known and understood (even if it hasn't been mentioned before in your essay), but if the audience are complete outsiders and there hasn't been any great publicity about "the lack", then you are essentially informing them of something new, so it would be "a lack".
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2 Answers
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Hello
Interesting question. I'm not an expert, but I'll offer an opinion, and hopefully someone can give you a more satisfactory technical explanation later.
My feeling would be that the choice of 'the' or 'a' depends on the degree of knowledge in the target audience. Do they understand which particular lack you are referring to? If they are industry figures, "the lack" will p
Interesting question. I'm not an expert, but I'll offer an opinion, and hopefully someone can give you a more satisfactory technical explanation later.
My feeling would be that the choice of 'the' or 'a' depends on the degree of knowledge in the target audience. Do they understand which particular lack you are referring to? If they are industry figures, "the lack" will p
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Hi John,
Thanks for the response.
Quote:
As for the omission of the article, to my mind it is an implied "a".
That's interesting.
My previous post was about the defining power of "of" in "a/the/(no article) lack of something" versus modifying roles of the articles "a" and "the".
Let's belabor the "lack of demand" example for a while.
Thanks for the response.
Quote:
As for the omission of the article, to my mind it is an implied "a".
That's interesting.
My previous post was about the defining power of "of" in "a/the/(no article) lack of something" versus modifying roles of the articles "a" and "the".
Let's belabor the "lack of demand" example for a while.
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