Are singular non-proper countable nouns always preceded by a determiner (a, the, some, any, this, that)?
ORIGINAL QUESTION: "Dose singular no-proper [Are singular common] nouns always preceded by an article (a, the) or are there some situations that this is not true?"
Best Answer
As a rule of thumb, you can get a so-called "bare noun" when the noun represents a collection of indeterminate items. So for example, consider the pair:
Case (a) uses "some", which you may be used to considering as an 'indeterminate' article. In case (b), no article is used at all.
Now, although "indeterminate", the crucial thing about using 'some' in (a) is that it implies that the children/adults could be specified. In case (b), by using bare nouns, you imply that the children/adults are basically unspecifiable. It would sound a little odd to say, for example:
whereas it would sound more natural with the article:
Now, this rule of thumb extends to various "set phrases" where it is unusual to specify the particular item in question. For example:
Here you don't generally care about the specific plane. Notice that if you do, re-wording in a way that uses the article becomes more natural: