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Jandi Posted 21 years ago
Grammar

'a' or 'the'

Hello, teachers!

In order to say an unspecific wheel in these sentences, which do we say, 'a' or 'the'?

1. The boy threw a stone. The stone flew away and hit [a, the] wheel of a car.
2. Lying by the side of the road, we saw [a, the] wheel of a car.

Thank you very much.
Peace!
  

Top answer

Interesting preoccupation, Ms. Jandi. Since you have already 'de-specified' with ' a car', ' the ' sounds much more natural to me (even though there are 4 wheels, we don't care about the numbers; the stone hit a wheel, not a fender).

— Mister Micawber

  • Interesting preoccupation, Ms.
  • Jandi.
  • Since you have already 'de-specified' with ' a car', ' the ' sounds much more natural to me (even though there are 4 wheels, we don't care about the numbers; the stone hit a wheel, not a fender).
  • I haven't gone looking for the 'rule' that governs this, however, and shan't unless the thread grows much longer.
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9 Answers
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Interesting preoccupation, Ms. Jandi. Since you have already 'de-specified' with 'a car', 'the' sounds much more natural to me (even though there are 4 wheels, we don't care about the numbers; the stone hit a wheel, not a fender).

I haven't gone looking for the 'rule' that governs this, however, and shan't unless the thread grows much longer.
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If so, do we use 'the' in this sentence, too? [regardless of the number of curators or ex-curators]
- He is [the, an] ex-curator of a museum of prehistoric history.

Enjoy the clear blue skies without any clouds!
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Your examples are very artificial: there are very few museums of prehistory in the world, and certainly only one in the speaker's range of context. It is a title, so I would use either 'the' or zero article:

He is the ex-curator of a museum of prehistoric history.
He is ex-curator of a museum of prehistoric history.
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Thank you, MM!
I wish you a good rest and another nice start of a week!
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Well, you can't, actually. You'd have to change the defining, or qualifying structure X of Y. Allow me to explain:

Since our example sentences, both 1. and 2., are the same with regards to the grammar point in question, I'll focus only on the latter part of those sentences: "a, the wheel of a car"; the verbs 'hit' and 'saw' do not have anthing to do with the distribution.

a.
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Well, it's not an X of Y structure,

a museum of history's ex-curator
ex-curator of a museum of history

so either 'an' or 'the' will do, depending on context of course; but, is an article/determiner really needed? Consider,

He's ex-curator of a museum of history.
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Thank you, Casi!
But it's too difficult for me.
I think I have to study more about this problem and your comments.
When I come to know better, I'd like to ask you more.
Help me again then, please!
Enjoy the icy sunshine!
Regards.
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Hello Casi
10 years' of experience ~ experience of 10 years

I was interested in the expressions you gave and have googled them out. The results are as follows;

Somebody has
(1) experience of ten years 4
(2) an experience of ten years 16
(3) the experience of ten years 4
(4) ten years of experience. 7380
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Google and I do not see eye-to-eye, for the simple reason that language is in the mind of the beholder. Hehe.

Thanks for the google-goods. I agree with you all the way.

10 years of experience
10 years' experience
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