Dropping the definite article
Hello everyone!
Could you please tell me if I'm right thinking that we have to drop "the" every time when the article initially belongs to the "defining" word(s)? Sorry, I don't know how to phrase it properly... For example, in a grammar book there's a question,
"Washington, Lincoln and Kennedy. Who were these people?"
The answer is, "They were US presidents" (not _the_ US presidents)
As far as I understand, normally, it's "the US", but we drop the article because now we're focused on the noun "presidents". Does it work this way every time? E.g. is it correct to say,
"I'm _a_ Russian Federation citizen" and
"They are Russian Federation citizens"?
Is the situation the same if "the" is the "official" part of the "defining" word(s)? For example, is it OK to say,
"I want to buy _a_ Rolling Stones T-shirt"?
Search from various English teachers...
Answers · 7
3
Yes, I'd say that was true. You can think of "US presidents" and "Rolling Stones T-shirt" as being compound nouns, where the first words are qualifying the word which follows, working in much the same way as an adjective.
I think it's reasonable to think of the terms like US or UK as having the function of adjectives. Newspapers from France are French newspapers, but newspapers from the UK are UK newspapers. If there isn't a handy adjective available ( such as the convenient Spanish adjective "estadounidense" meaning "United Statesian") , then you can treat the noun as an adjective and drop the definite article. For example, "They are UK citizens" or "They are US cities". I've never heard anyone call themselves a Russian Federation citizen, but in theory, I suppose you could say that.
2
It could help to think of the sentence as describing their profession e.g. I am a teacher (just one example in the whole set of teachers). They are doctors (just some examples in the whole set of doctors).
If we added "the", then the meaning would be "the only". "They were the US presidents" in your situation tells us that there were only three US presidents (which is obviously not true).
1
I think it's because they're in the plural.
Who is Obama? He was the US President.
Who are Bush and Clinton? They were US Presidents.
That last example is grammatically correct. You would say "I want to buy a shirt" not "I want to buy shirt".
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