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radfrac_archivePoetry discussion group means I'm trying my hand at close reading, and that reminded me of a little bit of puzzling I did the other day about grammar and meaning.
Warning: a post about fearfully finicky grammatical issues. Spoilers for the English language.
(This is a post about grammatical intuitions, not formal linguistic definitions, so my sense of usage here may be indiosyncratic.)
I was thinking about the distinction I learnt in high school between grammatical words and content words. Grammatical words being the words that create the formal structure of a sentence and content words doing the heavy lifting of conveying meaning. The thinking being that once you have “dog bite man” or “woman strangle you” you have the meat of the communicative act and the rest is... not gravy... pastry. A delivery system and a way to keep your fingers clean.
But of course we know that all words have content, and not just grammatical/relational content like subject/object.
I'm thinking about one of the simplest (and weirdest) contrasts in English: the definite article versus the indefinite article, “the” vs. “a”.
As I intuit it, “the” designates a particular and already known or identified thing, either in life or just in the course of a given utterance; whereas “a” designates a thing that is being dealt with as a member of a class, or that has not appeared in a given utterance/conversation before. The unknown.
So merely in your choice of articles you've said something – the thing you're talking about is known to you or it's unknown. It enters the conversation as a thing in its own right or as part of a class. Foreground or background.
Before you've pointed a thing out, if it isn't common knowledge between you and your listener/reader, you have to refer to it as “a” or it sounds weird:
For this to be normal usage, it should be “a faint shadow.”
However, common knowledge makes the “the” seem transparent:
You are walking through the park
Here “the” works because “walking through the park” is a common enough action, and being in a park is a common enough experience, that you can assume your reader/listener will regard this as a known place but one whose details are not currently important. In this instance, the “a” becomes the unusual, the marked case:
An unknown park, this, or a park in a dream, a park with no specific identity.
It's not all nuance. There are rules about how you use an article. There's a strict rule about “a”, for example.
It's my speaker's intuition that in normal speech you can only ever refer to a noun as “a(n) x” once, the first time it's introduced. Once something becomes particular in grammar, it can't revert to being just one of a class. At least, it can't without some convoluted conceptual gymnastics.
This is normal:
I can re-indefinite the shadow, but it's a weird thing to do in English:
I would think this figure was uncomfortable and uncertain. In the first person, I might even think that they had perceptual or memory problems:
Once something is made the focus of consciousness, just via this shift from indefinite to definite article, you have to force it out again, and doing that generates more meaning.
This is weird, alienated prose – the figure is disoriented, unsure of cause and effect, even dislocated in time. If we're talking about confronting an entity, one that usually requires both social and grammatical acknowledgement, the alienation is even more intense:
This feels deeply unsettling. The speaker is refusing to come to terms with this woman, to fully engage with her – or is unable to do so.
“A” refuses identity, and “the” insists on it. If this is my first sentence, I'm practically shouting that this woman, or at least her action, is important or at least that my speaker/narrator/proxy is very focused on this woman in the moment.
Absent other clues, we'd assume there were two different women.
This must be the same woman, but what is she doing?
Whose hand? What hand? What's happening?
Sometimes of course there is no need for articles:
But they contextualize:
Just an ordinary garden-variety nightmare about strangling.
You've had it over and over.
At least you know where you are.
Wait. Oh, no. Where are you?
You need to wake up somehow.
Parasomnia is a sleep disorder in which an individual shows abnormal movements, emotions, or perceptions during a sleep state, sometimes including walking, talking, and even violent actions, for which the individual may have complete or partial amnesia.
{rf}
Warning: a post about fearfully finicky grammatical issues. Spoilers for the English language.
(This is a post about grammatical intuitions, not formal linguistic definitions, so my sense of usage here may be indiosyncratic.)
I was thinking about the distinction I learnt in high school between grammatical words and content words. Grammatical words being the words that create the formal structure of a sentence and content words doing the heavy lifting of conveying meaning. The thinking being that once you have “dog bite man” or “woman strangle you” you have the meat of the communicative act and the rest is... not gravy... pastry. A delivery system and a way to keep your fingers clean.
But of course we know that all words have content, and not just grammatical/relational content like subject/object.
I'm thinking about one of the simplest (and weirdest) contrasts in English: the definite article versus the indefinite article, “the” vs. “a”.
As I intuit it, “the” designates a particular and already known or identified thing, either in life or just in the course of a given utterance; whereas “a” designates a thing that is being dealt with as a member of a class, or that has not appeared in a given utterance/conversation before. The unknown.
The faint shadow
A faint shadow
A faint shadow
So merely in your choice of articles you've said something – the thing you're talking about is known to you or it's unknown. It enters the conversation as a thing in its own right or as part of a class. Foreground or background.
Before you've pointed a thing out, if it isn't common knowledge between you and your listener/reader, you have to refer to it as “a” or it sounds weird:
As you enter the park, the faint shadow flickers over you.
For this to be normal usage, it should be “a faint shadow.”
However, common knowledge makes the “the” seem transparent:
You are walking through the park
Here “the” works because “walking through the park” is a common enough action, and being in a park is a common enough experience, that you can assume your reader/listener will regard this as a known place but one whose details are not currently important. In this instance, the “a” becomes the unusual, the marked case:
You are walking through a park
An unknown park, this, or a park in a dream, a park with no specific identity.
It's not all nuance. There are rules about how you use an article. There's a strict rule about “a”, for example.
It's my speaker's intuition that in normal speech you can only ever refer to a noun as “a(n) x” once, the first time it's introduced. Once something becomes particular in grammar, it can't revert to being just one of a class. At least, it can't without some convoluted conceptual gymnastics.
This is normal:
A faint shadow flickers over you. You turn around, but the shadow is gone.
I can re-indefinite the shadow, but it's a weird thing to do in English:
You see a shadow. The shadow vanishes. A shadow reappears.
I would think this figure was uncomfortable and uncertain. In the first person, I might even think that they had perceptual or memory problems:
I see a shadow. The shadow vanishes. A shadow reappears.
Once something is made the focus of consciousness, just via this shift from indefinite to definite article, you have to force it out again, and doing that generates more meaning.
A shadow flickers over you. A shadow vanishes. A shadow reappears.
This is weird, alienated prose – the figure is disoriented, unsure of cause and effect, even dislocated in time. If we're talking about confronting an entity, one that usually requires both social and grammatical acknowledgement, the alienation is even more intense:
A woman walks up to me. A woman speaks to me. A woman's voice is calm.
This feels deeply unsettling. The speaker is refusing to come to terms with this woman, to fully engage with her – or is unable to do so.
The woman walks up to you.
“A” refuses identity, and “the” insists on it. If this is my first sentence, I'm practically shouting that this woman, or at least her action, is important or at least that my speaker/narrator/proxy is very focused on this woman in the moment.
A woman walks up to me. A woman walks up to you.
Absent other clues, we'd assume there were two different women.
The woman walks up to me. The woman walks up to you.
This must be the same woman, but what is she doing?
A woman puts a hand around my throat.
The woman puts a hand around your throat.
The woman puts the hand around my throat.
A woman puts the hand around your throat.
The woman puts a hand around your throat.
The woman puts the hand around my throat.
A woman puts the hand around your throat.
Whose hand? What hand? What's happening?
A woman puts a hand around a throat
A woman puts both hands around the throat
A woman puts both hands around the throat
Sometimes of course there is no need for articles:
Terror
But they contextualize:
You are having a nightmare.
Just an ordinary garden-variety nightmare about strangling.
You are having the nightmare.
You've had it over and over.
You are in the bed.
At least you know where you are.
You are in a bed.
Wait. Oh, no. Where are you?
A woman is walking through a park.
You need to wake up somehow.
A woman puts a hand around a throat.
You need to wake up now.
Q. How does the use of the definite/indefinite article affect the meaning in this sentence:
Q. How does the use of the definite/indefinite article affect the meaning in this sentence:
Parasomnia is a sleep disorder in which an individual shows abnormal movements, emotions, or perceptions during a sleep state, sometimes including walking, talking, and even violent actions, for which the individual may have complete or partial amnesia.
{rf}
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no subject
Date: 2014-09-11 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-11 01:22 pm (UTC)Annnnd now I'm painfully aware of two things: my every use of "a" and "the" in this comment; and the fact that I'm a serious grammar geek (love this kinda stuff).