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HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL CONTRASTS: THE NOUN PHRASE
THE DEFINITE ARTICLE THE
The definite article the may have
+ specific definite reference, and
+ generic reference.
SPECIFIC DEFINITE REFERENCE
Definite reference means that the noun refers to something or someone as¬
sumed to be known to both the sender and the receiver. Definiteness depends
on assumed shared knowledge: the speaker/writer assumes that what they are
talking about is known to the listener/hearer either from the situation or from
previous discourse:
Hi, Jerry. Are you coming to the party tonight?
Specific definite reference may be situational (exophoric) reference and dis¬
course/textual reference. Situational reference means that an entity is known
from the situation: either the immediate situation in which the given piece of
communication takes place, or the wider situation, which includes knowledge
of the national situation, the world, or even the universe.
There is a grocer’s round the corner.
Join the Army and see the world.**
Discourse reference means reference to other parts of a piece of discourse.
Unknown entities are usually introduced into discourse using the indefinite
article. After they have been introduced, they can be treated as ‘known’ and
may be referred to by the in subsequent discourse. Discourse reference can be
anaphoric or cataphoric.
The definite article the can be used anaphorically to refer back to a previ¬
ously mentioned item:
A farmer survived more than 27 hours in a freezing snowdrift by building an
igloo. Howard Stevenson was found yesterday — with his trousers frozen solid
— five feet under the drift.
It can also be used cataphorically. In cataphoric reference definite reference is
established by something following later in the text, especially some modifier
of the noun e.g. the centre [of London], the summer [of 2015].
GENERIC REFERENCE
Reference is generic when a noun phrase refers to the whole class, rather than
just one or more members of a class:
34 https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/8847. Last accessed 05.12.2020.
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