Any website about the rules for omitting articles?

Question

Do you know any website that may be helpful for learning the rules for omitting articles?

Dokterjokkebrok · Accepted Answer

What do you think of this one?

http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/grammar/articles/2.xml

Excellent practical examples accompanied by explicit usage notes can be found here.

Kind regards

Dokterjokkebrok

Vcolts · Answer

I actually found the site myself and have it bookmarked but it wasn't helpful for my specific cases.

I would like to know when the article can be skipped. Ex. "The man and woman" as opposed to "The man and the woman".

I thought that in order to designate properly/define the noun properly, "the" is necessary unless the nouns belong in an absolute group (ex. a company, a group). I always thought that way.

Same for "A man and a woman" vs " A man and woman". What's the rule on omitting the article in these cases? Are there any difference in context or usage?

Dokterjokkebrok · Answer

I see.

Then I think it's best for you to search for 'zero article'.

It's discussed here:

http://www.sciaga.pl/tekst/81218-82-indefinite_article_zero_article

and here as well

http://grammar.about.com/od/tz/g/zeroarticleterm.htm

In the case of 'A man and woman', you can leave it out because it's a co-ordinate structure (joined by AND, OR,). We usually treat two independent clauses the same.

Cf.

John goes to the supermarket and John buys milk. (We don't usually say/write this)

and

John goes to the supermarket and (...) buys milk. (We usually omit 'John' the second time)

! You can only do this if the subject in the first part (...to the supermarket) is the same as the second part (....buys milk).

In my grammar books it's known as ellipsis. Leaving out articles is a specific kind of ellipsis called the zero article.

Kind regards

Vcolts · Answer

Thanks for the links. They will come in handy when I forget about the article rules.

I really do appreciate your help.

However, the specific question I am referring to is still not yet solved.

You wrote, "In the case of 'A man and woman', you can leave it out because it's a co-ordinate structure (joined by AND, OR,). We usually treat two independent clauses the same."

Does that apply to the case of "the man and woman" as well?

Is there any difference in meaning between "The man and woman" and "The man and the woman"?

Does ellipsis only apply to indefinite articles?

Vcolts · Answer

bump

Anonymous · Answer

http://www.grammarbank.com/articles.html

Anonymous · Answer

The rule is very simple: whenever you have two nouns connected with "and", as long as there is a logical connection between them, you omit the article before the second noun: the width and height of... the pros and cons of... a boy and girl... (also: my mother and father).

Any website about the rules for omitting articles?

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