Yesterday's class notes

Question

Is the following grammatical ?These are the class notes of yesterday's class.Or should I say of THE yesterday's class.Thanks.

David Hatton · Accepted Answer

What do you think - can you remember hearing 'the today's class' or 'the yesterday's lesson' or similar constructions?
Do those sound natural to you?

Future332 · Answer

Not at all, Sir.
However, sometimes I'm hesitant about what really sounds natural and what is grammatical.
These two often contradict in my mind. I begin to find similar constructions such as
How about meeting on the Sunday morning OR How about meeting on Sunday morning.
THE is a definite article so it makes sense to use it in the morning example so the listener knows I'm talking about this Sunday morning, not some other Sunday morning.
Articles is really a pain in the **** for me.
Sorry for complaining.

David Hatton · Answer

Not at all - the more we delve into the language, the harder it usually gets!
In the constructions you use, we do not need 'the'.
Once a noun gets modified by a day (or a word like 'yesterday' or 'today') then the article is redundant.
'The class' or 'yesterday's class' are useful - they inform us of which class it was. 'The yesterday's class' is not right because we already know which class it was from 'yesterday's'.
Occasionally we may use a determiner to make it clear which day we mean, for example 'this Sunday morning' is clearly helping us to understand that it is not last Sunday or any other Sunday. 'This' serves a purpose, while 'the' gives us no extra information so isn't used.
You could use 'the Sunday morning' if you are using it as part of a noun phrase that continues - for instance 'I will go to the Sunday morning service at church.' Here, 'the' tells you something certain - there is a particular Sunday morning service.
You could also refer to 'the Sunday morning that I played cricket' because it is helping us to know that it was a specific Sunday morning.
Hope this helps!

Future332 · Answer

Thank you very much, David Hatton for such a helpful explanation. (hope I used the article A correctly).
Really appreciate you answer.

Yesterday's class notes

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