ARTICLES.
Definite article.
433. The definite
article is repeated before each of two modifiers of the same noun, when the
purpose is to call attention to the noun expressed and the one understood. In
such a case two or more separate objects are usually indicated by the
separation of the modifiers. Examples of this construction are,—
With a singular noun.
The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and
the English breed is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood.—Gibbon.
The righteous man is distinguished from the
unrighteous by his desire and hope of justice.—Ruskin.
He seemed deficient in sympathy for concrete human
things either on the sunny or the stormy side.—Carlyle.
It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that
between the first and the second part of the
volume.—The Nation, No. 1508.
With a plural noun.
There was also a fundamental difference of opinion as to
whether the earliest cleavage was between the Northern and the
Southern languages.—Taylor, Origin of
the Aryans.
434. The same repetition of
the article is sometimes found before nouns alone, to distinguish clearly, or
to emphasize the meaning; as,—
In every line of the Philip and the Saul,
the greatest poems, I think, of the eighteenth century.—Macaulay.
He is master of the two-fold Logos, the thought
and the word, distinct, but inseparable from each other.—Newman.
The flowers, and the presents, and the
trunks and bonnet boxes ... having been arranged, the hour of parting
came.—Thackeray.
The not repeated. One object and
several modifiers, with a singular noun.
435. Frequently, however,
the article is not repeated before each of two or more adjectives, as in Sec.
433, but is used with one only; as,—
Or fanciest thou the red and yellow
Clothes-screen yonder is but of To-day, without a Yesterday or a
To-morrow?—Carlyle.
The lofty, melodious, and flexible
language.—Scott.
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece.—Tennyson.
Meaning same as in Sec. 433, with a
plural noun.
Neither can there be a much greater resemblance between
the ancient and modern general views of the town.—Halliwell-phillipps.
At Talavera the English and French troops for a
moment suspended their conflict.—Macaulay.
The Crusades brought to the rising commonwealths of
the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large increase of wealth.—Id.
Here the youth of both sexes, of the higher and
middling orders, were placed at a very tender age.—Prescott.
Indefinite article.
436. The indefinite
article is used, like the definite article, to limit two or more modified
nouns, only one of which is expressed. The article is repeated for the purpose
of separating or emphasizing the modified nouns. Examples of this use
are,—
We shall live a better and a higher and
a nobler life.—Beecher.
The difference between the products of a
well-disciplined and those of an uncultivated understanding is often
and admirably exhibited by our great dramatist.—S. T.
Coleridge.
Let us suppose that the pillars succeed each other, a
round and a square one alternately.—Burke.
As if the difference between an accurate and
an inaccurate statement was not
worth the trouble of looking into the most common book of reference.—Macaulay.
To every room there was an open and a
secret passage.—Johnson.
Notice that in the above sentences (except the first) the
noun expressed is in contrast with the modified noun omitted.
One article with several
adjectives.
437. Usually the article is
not repeated when the several adjectives unite in describing one and the same
noun. In the sentences of Secs. 433 and 436, one noun is expressed; yet the
same word understood with the other adjectives has a different meaning (except
in the first sentence of Sec. 436). But in the following sentences, as in the
first three of Sec. 435, the adjectives assist each other in describing the
same noun. It is easy to see the difference between the expressions "a
red-and-white geranium," and "a red and a white geranium."
Examples of several adjectives describing the same
object:—
To inspire us with a free and quiet
mind.—B. Jonson.
Here and there a desolate and uninhabited
house.—Dickens.
James was declared a mortal and bloody
enemy.—Macaulay.
So wert thou born into a tuneful
strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted
vein.
—Dryden.
For rhetorical effect.
438. The indefinite article
(compare Sec. 434) is used to lend special emphasis, interest, or clearness to
each of several nouns; as,—
James was declared a mortal and bloody enemy,
a tyrant, a murderer, and a usurper.—Macaulay.
Thou hast spoken as a patriot and a
Christian.—Bulwer.
He saw him in his mind's eye, a collegian, a
parliament man—a Baronet perhaps.—Thackeray. |
