Generic reference in English is usually indicated by the absence of the definite or indefinite article; mass nouns are expressed in the singular, count nouns in the plural, e.g.:
Patience is a virtue (mass noun)
Dogs are animals (count noun)
Occasionally generic reference is expressed by the definite or indefinite article with count nouns, e.g.:
The dog is a domestic animal
A dog has four legs
Rule: Generic reference is usually expressed by mass nouns and plural nouns with no article. Sometimes it is expressed by singular count nouns with the or a(n).
Examples of errors:
It should be stated at the outset that all of the examples above represent instances of first mention. That is to say, in no case does the context in which the sentence originally occurred justify the anaphoric use of the definite article, although, of course, one could easily construct other contexts for these sentences which would make them acceptable. With this caveat, the question of article usage can be discussed reasonably well at sentence level. Rule 1.1 (rules will be referred to by the number of the section in which they occur) is not very useful unless there is some way of defining the term "generic" that is not tautological. (The usage is generic when there is no article.) The identification of mass nouns is also a problem and will be discussed later (cf. 1.4), but it is not so important for the application of this rule, since in most cases count nouns also require the zero article in generic use.
The concept of generality, as opposed to specificity, from a purely logical point of view, does not seem to present serious problems of definition: generic refers to a whole, or all the members of a class; specific refers to a portion of the whole, or some of the members of the class. The problem in applying this definition to real language use, however, is that terms like "part" and "whole" can be strictly defined only relative to each other, not according to some external or absolute standard. A whole is a whole in relation to its parts, but can also be considered a part in relation to a larger whole; likewise, a part can be considered a whole in relation to the smaller parts which it comprises. How do we know when a particular noun or noun phrase should be considered a whole or a part? In (7), for example, the reference is not to production in general but to the production of cars—but, seen the other way, it refers not to the production of particular cars but to the production of cars in general. The same logical dilemma can be seen in most of the sentences above, although in each case the reference should be linguistically generic.
Some nouns seem to lend themselves more readily to generic reference than others. It is relatively hard to think of contexts where technology (10), speech (19), music (20), sport(s) (21), industry (15), or individualism (9) would have non-generic reference, without some accompanying modification—particularly an of phrase. Sometimes, even when the reference of a noun, although modified, may seem limited or specified by the particular context in which it occurs, the article is omitted and thus, linguistically, the reference is generic. In (16) it is understood from context that not all human society but only contemporary western society is meant; pain in (25) refers only to dental pain. Nevertheless, the zero article is preferable in both sentences.
It is hardly surprising that language use does not conform to the demands of pure logic, and various linguistic criteria have been proposed, with various degrees of success, to account for definite article usage. Two such criteria have already been mentioned. The first is that nouns which are modified are more likely to require the than unmodified nouns. There is still a strong appeal to "natural logic" in this criterion, however; Lamprecht (1972:§137), for example, puts it this way:
Substantive, die bei uneingeschrankter Verwendung artikellos bleiben, stehen mit dem bestimmten Artikel, sobald sie naher bestimmt oder eingegrenst werden. Die den Artikel erfordernde nahere Bestimmung oder Konkretisierung (=Anwendung auf einen Einzelfall) kann erfolgen durch ein zum Substantiv tretendes Attribut ...
This Attribut, he says, can take the form of a prepositional phrase (the history of mankind, the man in the street), a relative clause (the Mr. Smith you’re speaking of), a participial clause (the money gained by his efforts), or a "differentiating or contrastive" adjective (the contemplative life). The only kind of modification which seems to co-occur with the at all regularly, however, is of phrases. In the examples above, most of the nouns are premodified, a few are followed by a prepositional phrase (though no of phrases), and one (36) by a restrictive relative clause. More extensive statistical data about just what types of modifiers cooccur with the definite article, particularly along the lines of Yotsukura (1970; cf. also Robbins 1968, Smith 1964, Perlmutter 1970), might yield some pedagogically useful generalizations.
A second linguistic criterion for definite
usage is based on a subclassification of nouns into abstract nouns, collective nouns, names of materials, and plural names of species. Typically, however, the caveat must be made that these nouns, like any others, dispense with the definite article only when used generically—e.". " ... wenn sie in allgemeiner, nichteingeschrankter Bedeutung verwendet werden ..." (Lamprecht 1972: §127). This leads us back to the original problem of defining what generic means in the first place. Nevertheless, there does seem to be some sense in saying that at least some abstract nouns tend to be used generically more often than others—nouns ending in -a)tion/-sion, for example. By contrast, words ending in -(i)ty, also supposedly an abstract noun suffix, seem to occur more freely in both generic and specific contexts. If it could be shown that nouns ending in particular suffixes, or subgroups of nouns based on some other precise criteria, or nouns co-occurring with certain modifiers, do in fact occur with the significantly less frequently than in other cases, this information would be a significant help to the learner.
The questions (37) and (38) raise is: What is the difference between the three possible ways of expressing generic reference (zero/plural, the, or an), or is there any difference at all? We note, first of all, that generic the is unacceptable in (37a), whereas generic a is unacceptable in (38a):
(37a) The good relationship between nations depends on the citizens.
(38a) *I have a lot of difficulty with a gerund and tenses.
We might be tempted to say, in reference to (38a), that the noun phrase with generic a must occur as the subject of a clause (cf. Lamprecht 1972:§147), since we can say
A/The cow is a useful animal.
Cows are useful animals.
and
Tonight I’d like to talk about cows/the cow.
but not (if generic reference is intended)
*Tonight I’d like to talk about a cow.
Whether or not the noun is the subject or not is not the crucial factor, though, since we can also say (with generic reference):
Grass is the primary nutrient of cows/the cow/a cow
Another theory--this in reference to (37a)--is that generic the cannot be used if the noun refers to something that does not actually exist. According to Quirk et al. (1972:§4.28 Note), a sentence like The hobgoblin is a popular theme in literature is questionable, but many speakers would find nothing wrong with it, and likewise The unicorn is a mythological creature. Perhaps more interesting would be to ask why a is unacceptable in the first sentence but acceptable in the second:
*A unicorn/hobgoblin is a popular theme in literature.
A unicorn/hobgoblin is a mythological creature.
Perlmutter (1973:239-242) suggests that generic a(n) derives from an underlying any, and cites the following examples as evidence for this:
(1a) *The beaver or the otter builds dams
(1b) *Beavers or otters build dams
(1c) A beaver or an otter builds dams
(1d) Any beaver or any otter builds dams
(2a) The beaver and the otter build dams
(2b) Beavers and otters build dams
(2c) *A beaver and an otter build dams
(2d) *Any beaver and any otter build dams
(3a) Dams are built by the beaver
(3b) Dams are built by beavers
(3c) *Dams are built by a beaver
(3d) *Dams are built by any beaver
(4a) I said of the beaver that it builds dams
(4b) I said of beavers that they build dams
(4c) *I said of a beaver that it builds dams
(4d) *I said of any beaver that it builds dams
(5a) The beaver is building dams these days
(5b) Beavers are building dams these days
(5c) *A beaver is building dams these days
(5d) *Any beaver is building dams these days
(6a) The beaver built dams in prehistoric times
(6b) Beavers built dams in prehistoric times
(6c) *A beaver built dams in prehistoric times
(6d) *Any beaver built dams in prehistoric times
(7a) Beavers are found in Canada/increasing in numbers/extinct
(7b) The beaver is found in Canada/increasing in numbers/extinct
(7c) *A beaver is found in Canada/increasing in numbers/extinct
(7d) *Any beaver is found in Canada/increasing in numbers/extinct
The first set of examples in (1) show that generic a(n) and any are similar in allowing conjunction with or, whereas generic the and the generic plural do not allow it. The examples in (2) show that generic a(n) and any do not allow conjunction with and, however, while generic the and the generic plural do. Similarly, (3)-(6) illustrate sentence types in which generic a(n) and any are both unacceptable, whereas generic the and the generic plural are acceptable.
These examples make it clear, at least, that there are contexts in which generic a(n) is not interchangeable with generic the and the generic plural. The examples with any, though, are more problematic; many native speakers would not agree with Perlmutter that (d) in (i)-(vi) are unacceptable--they certainly are not as objectionable as (c). On the other hand, there are also cases where generic a(n), but not any, is acceptable, as in the sentence cited earlier:
A/*Any unicorn is a mythological creature.
A satisfactory description of the difference between the generic plural, a(n) and the must await a more complete investigation of generic reference in English. Failing this, since the plural is by far the most common of the three structures and has the least restrictions, the learner may be best advised simply to avoid using generic the and a(n).
In reference to (39)-(45), there are a number of nouns which do not take the article, particularly after prepositions and the verbs be and go. They are included here under generic reference because the definite or indefinite article is also possible in many expressions of this type, resulting in a quite different sense: go to the church (i.e. to a particular building), a wonderful breakfast. On the other hand, this usage does not seem to be conceptually generic in the same sense as sentences (1)-(76), and it may be more appealing to consider these simply as verbal and prepositional idioms, where the absence of the article is explained as a fossilization of an earlier state of the language, before the present function of the definite article became generalized. Some of the nouns that occur in these idioms can be grouped in semantic categories though this doesn’t mean that these nouns cannot also occur with the article. Compare:
seasons
It’s hot in summer.
but (with the same meaning)
It’s hot in the summer.
institutions
He’s in bed.
He’s at school.
but
He hid under the bed.
He called the school.
means of transport
He goes by car.
but
He takes the car.
times of the day and night
He wakes up at night.
but
He wakes up in the middle of the night.
meals
He served me breakfast and lunch.
but
The breakfast was good but the lunch was terrible.
illnesses
Have you had measles?
but
He has the measles.