There is a set of sentences:
"I love pictures on my phone. The pictures are nice."
In a thread
I love pictures on my phone – what does zero article imply?
I was told that the meaning of the first sentence is more likely that I like having photos on my phone.
Buy can I use this set of sentences, when I mention those pictures for the first time in the first sentence, talking about real pictures, with no article, assuming the listener doesn't know that I have any pictures on my phone, and then say "the pictures"? Is it appropriate then?
Thanks.
Best Answer
It seems highly awkward and clumsy to me; I would say no, you cannot.
The definite article has many uses. You seem to be wanting to leave it out here because of the half-truth often stated that a definite article requires that the noun phrase in question be already within the scope of the discourse. This is not entirely false, but it only a part of the whole truth.
Another function of the definite article is to signal that the noun phrase is somehow modified or more narrowly defined than the bare noun (phrase) itself.
Thus, for example, it is perfectly natural that the second paragraph in this answer starts with “the definite article” since the definite article has already been introduced in your question and is within the scope of our current (virtual) discourse. In the next line, it is also natural that I use “the noun phrase” because it is modified and narrowed down by “in question”. If this narrowing down had not been present, the sentence would have been awkward:
– would not work in this context since “noun phrase” is not something that exists in the scope of the discourse.
In your example, “on my phone” narrows down the head of the noun phrase, “pictures”, which means that it is perfectly natural to use a definite article. You are in fact referring to a specific, definite subset of pictures, namely the ones that are located on your phone.
Leaving out the definite article is fine in the sentence itself—as stated in the thread you link to, it simply forces “pictures” to refer to an indefinite, undefine set of pictures, which is then taken to be just any possible pictures and ends up meaning that you love having pictures on your phone. An undefined, vague notion of “pictures” is introduced into the scope of the discourse, but it remains to some degree ‘unreferenced’, as it were.
There is nothing wrong with this, but since the next sentence uses “the pictures” without narrowing down the set of pictures, this instance of the definite article does require that a specific, defined set of “pictures” be available in the discourse—and no such set is found. Only a looser, undefined set of “pictures” is found, which is not enough.