The use of 'the' in this example

Question

I've been having one of my private students do summaries of high level articles from journals, and in one of the articles there was a sentence that seems to me to be missing 'the' (denoted by {the}):

The Kremlin does not control {the} factors that do the most to determine the country's economic stability.

(The article does NOT use [the} here, but I think it should be used since the noun is referred to later (i.e., the 'that; clause.)

What do you think? Whenever I see usage by other (asummed native English speaking) educated folks that seems to be wrong, I want to make sure that I'm correct!

Enoon · Accepted Answer

I can't tell out of context.

CalifJim · Answer

swampwizThe Kremlin does not control {the} factors that do the most to determine the country's economic stability.

The use of 'the' may imply that the reader knows which factors in particular are being referred to — more specifically than can be determined by the clause that follows. The writer may have wanted to block that idea, preferring instead to leave it at any factors that match the following descriptive phrase, whether the reader knows which factors these are or not.

'the' always implies common focus between writer and reader (speaker and listener) on which entity is meant. If the reader (listener) has to ask "Which?" after "the" has been used, the use of "the" was probably wrong.

In this case, the reader, possibly not very knowledgeable about the subject, might easily ask "Which factors?" if "the" were used:

What do you mean, "the factors"? Which are the factors that do the most to determine the country's economic stability? Population? Interest rates? Unemployment? I, the reader, don't know which specific factors you are talking about.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

swampwizI've been having one of my private students do summaries of high level articles from journals, and in one of the articles there was a sentence that seems to me to be missing 'the' (denoted by {the}):The Kremlin does not control {the} factors that do the most to determine the country's economic stability.(The article does NOT use [the} here, but I think it should be used since the noun is referred to later (i.e., the 'that; clause.) What do you think? Whenever I see usage by other (asummed native English speaking) educated folks that seems to be wrong, I want to make sure that I'm correct!

I'd argue that "the" is not out of place in the context of this sentence. In my opinion the factors are (exactly) those that do the most to determine the country's economic stability and not those that do the least (or less than the most) to determine the country's economic stability.

Swampwiz · Answer

OK, I think I understand now. BTW, the article goes on to describe 2 factors.

There is some set of factors that can be considered to be contributing above some arbitrarily high standard in the determination of the country's stability.

The use of 'the' implies that these 2 factors are the only factors in this set, where as the non-use implies that there are other factors in the set, that are in addition to these 2 factors.

Swampwiz · Answer

I'd also like to add that the preferrable construct corresponding to not using 'the' is 'some of the', which clearly specifies that there is a larger set of factors that meet the standard than the set described.

Grammarfreak · Answer

CalifJimWhat do you mean, "the factors"? Which are the factors that do the most to determine the country's economic stability? Population? Interest rates? Unemployment? I, the reader, don't know which specific factors you are talking about.

I ditto that. I read this sentence several times because it sounded awkwardly constructed to my ear, and the word " factors" really had me scratching my head. Without knowing the extended contexts, " the " to me is not required.

CalifJim swampwizThe Kremlin does not control {the} factors that do the most to determine the country's economic stability

Swampwiz · Answer

OK, it turns out that the author was correct (i.e., with 'the') and my student was thinking that it should not be there.

The use of 'the' in this example

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