'a' vs 'the'

Question

1. Could you tell me what the difference is between the following sentences?

1A. I saw him cross a street at a crosswalk.
1B. I saw him cross the street at the crosswalk.

2. Could you tell me which one is possible of the following sentences?

2A. I saw him cross a street at the crosswalk.
2B. I saw him cross the street at a crosswalk.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

lucas21c1. Could you tell me what the difference is between the following sentences?
1A. I saw him cross a street at a crosswalk.
1B. I saw him cross the street at the crosswalk.

1A. The identity of the street and/or of the crosswalk is of no significance to you or to the story you're telling. Any street with a crosswalk fulfills the needs of your story.
1B. The identity of the street and the crosswalk is known to you and your reader or listener. It is assumed that everybody in the conversation knows which street and crosswalk you're talking about.

All choices of articles depends on the environment the sentence is in, either real world environment or contextual environment within a written document.

lucas21c2. Could you tell me which one is possible of the following sentences?
2A. I saw him cross a street at the crosswalk.
2B. I saw him cross the street at a crosswalk.

2A means he crossed at one of the crosswalks which cross some unidentified street; it doesn't say which street. It's assumed that everybody in the conversation knows that "the crosswalk" is one of the crosswalks associated with that street even if they don't know which street it was. It wouldn't a case where the street is in London and the crosswalk is in New York.

2B means everybody already knows which street you're talking about and the crosswalk is just one of the crosswalks associated with that street, but it doesn't matter which crosswalk it is. It just lets us know that he didn't cross the street in the middle of traffic where there was no crosswalk.

CJ

'a' vs 'the'

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