In most languages indefinite articles stem from that language's word for one. For instance in French un, or in German ein, In Italian and Spanish uno or in Portuguese um.
English is no exception: an was derived from one. Note that an was the original indefinite article; the shorter a came later when the final "n" was dropped before consonants.
In some of the languages I mentioned above, the plural form of the indefinite articles is simply formed by applying the noun plural inflection: unos/unas or uns/umas.
In others, such as German and Italian, there is no plural form to the indefinite article. Italian use the partitive article degli/delle as a substitute and this is probably also the origin of the French plural form des.
For some reason English did not go through this last step either. To understand why we need to go back to the way Old English solved the problem.
In Old English adjectives have a different declension depending on whether the noun they qualify is determined or not.
"The glad man" reads
se glæd guma
whereas, "a happy man" is:
glæda guma
As one can see, only the adjective changes.
For one given adjective, you could therefore have different inflections depending on:
- the noun gender (masculine, feminine, neuter)
- the noun being singular or plural
- the four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative)
- whether the reference is definite or indefinite.
So that the same adjective would have to follow either the "definite" declension or one of three "indefinite" declensions.
þa glædan guman
Edit
<conjecture>
The theory I'm trying to check (community please feel free to edit) is that in various languages (Icelandic for a language very close to Old English or Romanian) the article is added as a suffix to the noun. Then it often "detaches" and passes in front of the noun. Icelandic is half way through for the definite article in that matter.
As for the Old English indefinite article, my conjecture is that the process never went through for a number of possible reasons:
- The "loss of inflection" of early Middle English won the race
- The plural of "an" was not easy to evolve at that time (the Romance "-s" plural had not imposed itself yet).
</conjecture>
But the need is still there, just as in any other language where a specific word emerged for the plural indefinite article. This gap is filled by placeholders such as some or a number of.
Most linguist agree that Proto Indo European did not use articles.
Latin does not have any kind of article, and Ancient Greek arguably had no indefinite article either - it was using something very much like present-day English some (τις - "a certain"). And I believe that Old German did not have any article either.
It is a very remarkable fact that articles appeared in many modern Indo European languages in a largely mutually independent yet very similar manner. My feeling is that their emergence compensates for the gradual loss of inflection in these languages. But then present-day German is a powerful counterexample...
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:
… a definite article requires that the noun phrase be already within the scope of the discourse
– 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.
Best Answer
In this you would have first to do a distinction between countable and uncountable (substance) things. Perhaps there could be a reference text, but I will try a roundup.
This shouldn't be mysterious:
A countable object can be counted in units (1, 2, 3, 4, 5...). One can enumerate one car, two cars, etc (the equivalent in mathematics would be a discrete value). So it can be used in singular and plural form.
Milk being a substance, in most cases you don't count it in units such as 1, 2, 3: if you add milk into a pot you don't add "one milk" or "two milks*, but a quantity such as 1 gallon or 1.3 gallons. It is still milk (singular). It is described as uncountable (the equivalent in mathematics, would be a continuous value).
Uncountable Names
"Of" is often used with uncountable names. The rule is simple: if this refers to the substance in general, there is no article:
If the substance is specific (typically to a certain place and time), it is possible to specify this:
Countable Names
With countable names, the rules is similar: omit "the" when it refers objects of a certain category, and use "the" when it refers to specific objects.
So, in general:
Or in particular:
For your question about hotel, there is a nuance, which is quite perceptible:
A "change of hotel" is an often practiced action. You don't want to be particularly specific. You just want a new hotel, for whatever reason.
You are being specific about that hotel. In that particular case, you are conveying there is something wrong with it. Perhaps you would avoid it if you want to avoid confrontation ("What's wrong with that hotel?"), or else you would use it to make yourself extra-clear.
Similarly, when you open a conversation with a travel agent:
(you want to activate a procedure called "change of reservation")
But if the travel agents already knows what reservation you are talking about:
Conclusion
Regardless of countable or uncountable, it's a about being specific or not specific. In many cases, the context will dictate which one you need to use. In others, you could decide whether you want to use one or the other, so as to express the exact nuance.
As a caveat about uncountable versus countable, this is not necessarily a feature connected to the word itself, but to the meaning you are giving to it.
For the example of "oil":
If you wanted to be specific: