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by Paul
"Do you have a dog?" "He told me the password." In English, as well as in other languages such as Spanish, French, German, and so on, we have short words like "the" and "a" which are incredibly common. These words are called "articles," and in English the is the "definite article" and a/an is the "indefinite article." In Spanish, they are el/la/los/las and un/una; in German, they have many forms depending on gender and case, but if you study German you of course recognize der vs. ein.
The use of articles
Articles seem very important - they tell us whether a noun is definite or indefinite, that is, whether we know a specific thing that the noun is referring to, or whether the noun is standing for a new or unknown thing. Think of the sentences "I have the key" vs. "I have a key." How are the meanings different? In the first sentence, "the key" is indicating that you and the person you are talking to already know which specific key you are talking about. You might say it if you are standing in front of your house and your friend says "Oh, it's locked." On the other hand, in the second sentence "a key" makes it sound like you found a key on the ground and don't know what it's for - or maybe, there are only certain people who can unlock this door and you are announcing that you are one of the people who has one of those special keys.
In English and many other languages, articles are mandatory. If you said, "I have key," that would be ungrammatical. And it makes sense, right? The meaning of articles helps you know what you are talking about. But what about languages that don't have articles?
Maybe instead of English, French, German or other languages with articles, you are trying to learn Korean, or Japanese, or Russian. You have probably noticed that these languages don't have mandatory articles - you don't have to put any words like "the" or "a" in front of a noun. How does that work? Don't you need articles?
What do articles do and why do you need them?
Clearly, you don't, since speakers of Korean or Russian get along just fine. But why? The answer is that the work that articles do can be implied by context. Articles are nice, but let's look at what they do and whether you logically need them.
1. Definite articles signal that the noun is something that the speaker and listener already know about from previous context. Do you need an article for that? Maybe it's helpful sometimes, but if you know something, you just know it!
2. Indefinite articles signal that the noun is not specific. It could be any random thing out of all the things that the noun is talking about, like "a key" (any old key will do) or "a dog" (any dog, no matter what breed or who it belongs to, is what you're talking about). Again, an indefinite article could help express this meaning, like in the "I have the/a key" example above. And in fact there are some languages which don't have definite articles, and only use an indefinite article for this kind of meaning. But since we can usually tell whether or not somebody is talking about a specific thing or not, you still don't need an indefinite article for this function.
3. Indefinite articles signal that a noun is new and not familiar. This is the meaning when you pick up money off the ground and announce you found "a dollar". There is only one specific dollar that you found and are holding in your hand, but you want to inform your listener that the dollar is a new item that you didn't have or know about before. Do you need an article to do that? Probably not, especially since tone of voice often signals a new discovery.
There are some other subtle uses of articles, but you get the point. Not all languages have to make the same grammar words mandatory. The great linguist Roman Jakobson once said that "Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey." We can all express ourselves equally well in every language on earth, but every language wants to do things its own way, and we have to remember that what is mandatory in one language can be optional in another one.
About Paul
Paul is currently a grad student in Computational Linguistics. His main interests are in Semitic languages and philosophy, and loves a good cup of coffee to go with them.
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