Articles – Using ‘The’ with ‘Painting’ When Discussing Crafts

An interesting question, touching on a point of syntax I do not see in my grammar references. Let us explore.

Intuitively, a native English speaker recognizes that the before names is optional in each of these cases. (The last sentence is different syntactically, and is not addressed in this answer.) Here are some similar constructions where the is likewise optional:

• [The] leaders of democratic nations are usually persuasive public speakers.
• [The] shorelines of lakes are sometimes highly developed.
• [The] covers of graphic novels often feature a dramatic scene from the story.

In each of these cases, as well as the cases in the question, the is only optional because the noun it modifies is also being modified by a prepositional phrase — “of languages”, “of democratic nations”, “of graphic novels”. Without such a prepositional phrase, we would be referring to names, shorelines, etc. in general, and the use of the would be incorrect (unless an earlier sentence had specified what names or shorelines we are referring to). With such a phrase, the can be used or omitted, and the sentence sounds correct either way. Why?

I think it is because the noun phrase in these cases is a sort of hybrid. The noun can be viewed as a generic noun (names, leaders, shorelines, covers in general), which cannot take the; but it can also be viewed as one that, having been specified (names of languages, shorelines of lakes), does take the. Consider these phrases:

• Covers of graphic novels
• The covers of graphic novels

The first usage seems more generic: covers of all graphic novels, considered as a class. The second seems more specific: which covers? these covers.

As I said, a most interesting question, and one that I was unable to find addressed in my reference materials. I did find some material online addressing similar issues:

• Use (or non-use) of articles before abstract nouns (see top answer)
• Q: Optional use of 'the' referring to "daily life of" vs. "daily life as" (unanswered)
• http://www.everythingenglishblog.com/?p=502

1. It's correct both with and without "the"

2. Unfortunately, as a native speaker, my thought process is to try it both ways and determine if it is correct by simply knowing.

3. It was a bit harder because I had to try it both ways, and usually it's only correct one way, or it's significantly better one way, but in this example, it feels 100% natural both ways.

So, all of that is probably not helpful to you, so I'll break it down as an English teacher, rather than as a native speaker.

The first thing I tell students struggling with article usage is that it's one of the three hardest things to get right in English (along with preposition choice and phrasal verb meanings). There are so many tiny little rules that only apply in certain very specific contexts, and sometimes only apply to an arbitrary subset of words. Most learners never learn all of them and make mistakes with articles forever. And that's probably fine since there's so few situations in life where anybody needs native proficiency.

Enough with the pep talk. Let's get down to analyzing this sentence.

A noun with a zero-article means the noun in general. In sentence 3, if there's a zero-article, "items" by itself means "items in general", but then it is specified by the reduced relative clause "selected along the way". A noun cannot be both general and specified, so it becomes clear that the zero-article doesn't modify "items" alone, but modifies the entire noun phrase, "items selected along the way". This makes sense, because we can talk in general about "items selected along the way".

A noun with "the" means the noun is being or has been specified. In sentence 3, it has not been specified in a previous context, so it must be specified in the sentence itself. The reduced relative clause, "selected along the way", specifies which items, so "the" applies to "items", and then "selected along the way" provides the specification.

So one way, the noun phrase in Sentence 3 means "the items selected along the way -- as opposed to other items not selected along the way", and the other way it means, "items selected along the way in general", without contrast to other items. The meanings are so similar, it's likely both are correct for the context. Using "the" would be preferred (only preferred, not required) if the context distinguished between items selected along the way, and other kinds of items, like items selected at other times, or items not selected at all.

Hopefully, that illuminates things a little bit.