The use of the article with the proper nouns

Indefinite articles typically arise from adjectives meaning one. For example, the indefinite articles in the Romance languages—e.g., un, una, une—derive from the Latin adjective unus. Partitive articles, however, derive from Vulgar Latin de illo, meaning (some) of the.

The English indefinite article an is derived from the same root as one. The -n came to be dropped before consonants, giving rise to the shortened form a. The existence of both forms has led to many cases of juncture loss, e.g. transforming the original a napron into the modern an apron [39].

An indefinite article indicates that its noun is not yet a particular one (or ones) identifiable to the listener. It may be something that the speaker is mentioning for the first time, or its precise identity may be irrelevant or hypothetical, or the speaker may be making a general statement about any such thing. English uses a or an (depending on the initial sound of the next word) as its indefinite article.

The indefinite article is just the opposite of the definite article. In English, the indefinite articles are "a, an, some, any." They are "indefinite" because they do not refer to a particular thing as "the" does, but simply refer to an object or person in a non-specific way, that is, we do not specify exactly to which person or object we are referring to [21; 58].

For example:

• A white house on a green hill.
• A cat ate the sardine 
  * We are not specifying which cat ate the sardine, it could have been any cat.

Notes:

It is normal to use the indefinite article when we mention someone or something for the first time in our conversation or text.

e.g.

• I've finally got a good job.
• We bought a new computer and it was cheap.
• Would you like a drink?

"A" and "an" are also used to refer to a particular member of a group or class. 
e.g.

• She is an English teacher.
• He wants to be a dancer.
• John is an Englishman.
• Sherlock Holmes was playing a violin when the visitor arrived.
• I was born on a Thursday.

We also use the indefinite article to talk about price / weight, speed. 
For example:

• This car does 240 km an hour.
• It is 10 euros a kilo.

Certain numbers in English require the presence of an indefinite article.  
e.g.

• A hundred, a thousand, a million, etc...

With singular nouns, after the words "what" and "such" 
e.g.

• What a day!
• What a shame!
• She's such a beautiful girl.

Meaning "one", referring to a single object or person 
For example:

• I'd like an orange and two lemons please.
• The burglar took a diamond necklace and a valuable painting.

                            The choice between "a" and "an" 
Depends on the initial sound of the adjective that immediately follows the article: 
Use "a" with nouns starting with a consonant. On the other hand, we use "an" before nouns starting with a vowel.  
For example:

• an umbrella
• a table
• an elephant
• a book

NOTE: If the next word begins with a consonant sound when we say it then we use a. If the next word begins with a vowel sound when we say it then we use an. 
For example:

• We say "university" with a "y" sound at the beginning as though it were spelt "youniversity". 
  => a university
• We say "hour" with a silent h as though it were spelt "our". 
  => an hour [].

    In contrast to “the”, an indefinite article is use when a reference cannot be regarded as uniquely identifiable from the shared knowledge of speaker. The indefinite article is commonly associated with “first mention” of an item which anaphoric “the” would be used in subsequent mention:

    e.g. Her house was burgled and she lost a camera, a radio, and a purse – though fortunately the purse contained very little money and the camera was insured. 

    There is no difference in meaning between "a" and "an". When using a/an we must always bear in mind the following facts:

• "A/an" has an indefinite meaning, (the person, animal or thing referred to may be not known to the listener or reader, so a/an has the sense of any or I cannot tell you which, or it doesn’t matter which).

               e.g. My brother’s going out with a French girl.

(The listener does not know which particular French girl it is.)

                 e.g. She lives in a nice big house.

                 e.g. Could you lend me a pen?

• 2.We can also use "a/an" to talk about any one member of a class.

                 e.g. She is a doctor.

• 3.We can use "a/an" after a copular verb or as to classify people and things to say what class, group or type they belong to.

                  e.g. She’s an architect.

                e.g. I’m looking forward to being a grandmother.

                 e.g. “What’s that noise?” “I think it’s a helicopter.”

                  e.g. He decided to become an engineer.

                  e.g. He remained a bachelor all his life.

                e.g. Don’t use your plate as an ashtray [22; 157].

• "A/an" is used after the verbs " be " and " have "

                    e.g. She is a doctor.

• "A/an" is used  to mean " per "

   e.g. He works five days a week.

• "A/an" can also be used with:

                                             Money (a / one dollar)

                                              Fraction (a / one quoter)

                                              Weight / measure (a / one inch)

                                              Whole numbers (a / one million)                                                                        

                                              Price / weight (a liter)

                      Frequency / time (twice a day)

                       Distance / fuel (50 miles a gallon)                                           Illnesses (a headache, a fever, catch a cold etc.) [25; 169].

We can make a conclusion, that indefinite article indicates that its noun is not yet a particular one (or ones) identifiable to the listener. It may be something that the speaker is mentioning for the first time, its precise identity may be irrelevant or hypothetical, or the speaker may be making a general statement about any such thing. English uses "a" or "an" (depending on the initial sound of the next word) as its indefinite article.

4. The zero article

The zero article is a staple element of any description of English article usage from advanced research publications down to student grammars, but there has been very little inquiry into its meaning and its other properties.  There are copious amounts of publications dealing with the definite and indefinite articles but none about the zero article.

Berezowski  investigates the origin of the concept of the zero article and shows that it has roots both in structural linguistics of the 1940s and earlier historical linguistics. Structural linguists went on to claim that, since the use of articles in English is deemed 'obligatory', the zero article exists but it has no overt form.  Looking through earlier attempts at analyzing the meaning of the zero article, from Jespersen to Chesterman, Berezowksi shows how they all fail.

An answer to theoretical problems of grammaticalization are developed; it is shown that English articles have not yet reached a stage in their development where their use has spread to all grammatical environments.  Thus, a model is developed for determining when there is no article in English.  The new model is tested against a commonly occurring case of zero article, using a corpus-based approach.

The Myth of the Zero Article will appeal to academics and students interested in grammar and syntax.  It covers an issue recurrent in the teaching and learning of English as Second/Foreign language, and will also appeal to teacher trainers and trainee teachers [11; 5].

    The use of nouns on their own without an article is so fundamental in English that we should not regard this merely as “the omission of the article”. We should think of the non-use of the article as something positive and give it a name the zero articles which is usually given the symbol O [20; 53].

The zero article is the absence of an article. In languages having a definite article, the lack of an article specifically indicates that the noun is indefinite. Linguists interested in X-bar theory causally link zero articles to nouns lacking a determiner. In English, the zero article rather than the indefinite is used with plurals and mass nouns [21; 95].

    Basic uses of the zero article

    We use the zero article before three types of nouns:

1. Plural countable nouns.

                       e.g. Museums are closed on Monday.

                       e.g. Italians make delicious ice-cream.

                       e.g. Trees don’t grow in the Antarctic.

2. Uncountable nouns (always singular).

                     e.g. Water must be pure if it is to be drunk.

                     e.g. Red is my favorite colour.

                    e.g. Smoking is bad for the health.

3. Proper nouns.

    Also we should bear in mind the following rules of using the zero article:

• Zero article for days, months, seasons and holidays

      e.g. Mondays are always difficult.

                         e.g. June is my favorite month.

                             e.g. Spring is a lovely season.

• Zero article for academic subjects and related topics

      e.g. Art, Biology, Chemistry, Geography, History.

                            e.g. English is a difficult language to learn well.

• Zero article for times of the day and night. Combinations are common with at, by, after, before:

        e.g. At dawn/daybreak, at sunset/sunrise, by day/night.

                              e.g. We got up at dawn to climb to the summit.

• Zero article for meals

       e.g. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper etc.

• Zero article in fixed phrases

e.g. Arm in arm, come to light, face to face, from top to bottom, hand in hand, keep in mind, make friends, make fun of. [12; 13-47]

• The use of zero article with possessive adjectives

      e.g. This isn’t your bag.

• Bed, church, college, court, prison, school, university, when we refer to the purpose for which they exist. 

     e.g. John went to university. ( He is a student.)

• Pubs, restaurant, shops, banks and hotels which have the name of their founder and end in –s or - 's

    e.g. Selfridges, Barclay Bank, Harry's etc.

• Two- word names whose first word is the name of a person or place

     e.g. Charles de Gaulle Airport, Buckingham palace etc.

• The words home, Father/Mother when we talk about our own home home/parents

     e.g. Mother is at home.

• Means of transport: by bus/ by car/ train/ by plane

                   e.g. He travelled by train[ 25; 171].

Thus, the zero article is the absence of an article. In languages having a definite article, the lack of an article specifically indicates that the noun is indefinite. Linguists interested in X-bar theory causally link zero articles to nouns lacking a determiner. In English, the zero article rather than the indefinite is used with plurals and mass nouns.

Chapter 2. The use of article with proper nouns in " The Dressmaker " by Beryl Bainbridge.

We shall analyze " The Dressmaker " by Beryl Bainbridge and investigate the phenomena of the use of article with proper nouns in this work. There many rules of the use of articles with the nouns in our theoretical part and we try to follow them and research the practical equivalent.

Our practical part consists of thee units that contain the examples of using the articles including their peculiarities.

2.1. The use of definite article with proper nouns in «The Dressmaker» by Beryl Bainbridge.

1. A noun modified by a proper noun in the common case [ 4; 35].

        e.g. She nearly shouted for her to stop it, but instead she sat down on mothers old sofa, re-upholstered in L.M.S. material brought a sale, and immediately, in spite of the disparate cold of the unused room, the Christmas drink went to her head[27; 5].

2. The name of hotels, ship, newspaper and magazines is used with definite article.

     e.g. Mrs. Mander told Nelly all about her daughter’s opportunities and what young man was courting her and how she'd been to a tea-dance at Reece's Ballroom and an evening do at the Locarno and what the fallow at the Ladies' Hot Pot Supper night had said about her[ 27; 18].

3. Name denoting the whole family[ 4; 32].   

    e.g. Marge wondered whether the Manders were wise, filling the house with strangers and letting them behave any way they pleased[ 27; 18].

4. Names of cardinal points[ 25; 62].

   e.g. He would have suggested a cup of tea at Winifred Cottage on the East Lancs road, but it was a fair run and want another scene over his petrol ration[ 27; 61].

5. Names of persons modified by a particularizing attribute are used with the definite article[ 4; 33].

     e.g. They cut across the bomb site beside the Corn Exchange[ 27; 110].

6. Names of months when these nouns are modified by particularizing attribute the define article is used[ 4; 35].

    e.g. The April of 1978 was incredibly difficult for my family[ 27; 95]. 7.Common nouns denoting professions followed by names of person are generally used with the definite article[ 4; 32].

       e.g. The doctor Cyril was very intelligent person who have forget about our       family[ 27; 154].

8. The use of articles with names of persons modified by others adjectives and participles names of persons take the definite article[ 4; 33].

  e.g. The enthusiastic George was confused having seen a beautiful Marge[27; 54].

We can summarize that using of definite article with proper nouns can help us to understand the main theme of the work, to characterize the heroes and their actions. We can clearly understand the importance of some places or persons.

2.2. The use of indefinite article with proper nouns in " The Dressmaker "