Article before "Polish truck driver"

Question

Hello all,Happy New Year and thank you to all of you for helping us this year!A question about article use here:i) Polish people have gathered to commemorate a Polish truck driver killed in a terrorist attack in Berlin.ii) Polish people have gathered to commemorate the Polish truck driver killed in a terrorist attack in Berlin.Let's assume the Polish truck has not been mentioned before. Either article is fine, right? "A" introduced the driver, while "the" is okay too because the balance of the sentences indicates which one is referred to (the only one killed in that attack). Right?

Englishmaven · Accepted Answer

You are correct.

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you. Happy New Year to you and all the other teachers here! My best wishes and blessings!

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousHappy New Year and thank you to all of you for helping us this year!

Same to you, and you're very welcome.

AnonymousPolish people have gathered to commemorate a Polish truck driver killed in a terrorist attack in Berlin.

This sentence has the ring of the first line of a news article. In view of that, even with the post-modifying clause, the choice is "a". In my opinion no journalist would dream of using "the". It would appear in a newspaper just as shown above. First mention is more important here.
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"the" might appear in another sentence that gives the same information, but in less formal language.

They're having a commemoration service for [the/that] Polish truck driver who got killed in the Berlin attack.

It assumes that the listener already knows about the driver, but even so, it communicates that information at the same time, so even if the listener doesn't know about the driver at the beginning of the sentence, he will at the end of it — and think to himself, "Right. I should have known that".

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you, CalifJim! Very helpful! Thank you for clarifying this. But, to make sure, it's still okay to use "the" even if I think that the reader does not know that there was a Polish truck driver who was killed in the attack, because the rest of the sentence clarifies which one I am talking about, right (I am not a journalist!) - that one killed in the attack?

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousBut, to make sure, it's still okay to use "the" even if I think that the reader does not know that there was a Polish truck driver who was killed in the attack, because the rest of the sentence clarifies which one I am talking about, right (I am not a journalist!) - that one killed in the attack?

"the" is grammatically correct, so it's still OK, and for the reason you state. I understand that you're not a journalist. Nevertheless, as I said, it's hard to imagine that a journalist would use "the" if that were the first line of his newspaper story.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

I understand, thank you very much! All the best to you!

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