| Popis: |
Linguistic theories in general, and psychomechanics in particular, with its essentially binary model, struggle to account for bare nouns within the larger system of the articles. Though the term ‘zero article’ is commonly found in the literature, there is hardly a consensus over its meaning. When dealing with French, where bare nouns remain marginal, one observes a fault line between one theoretical posture meaning to integrate it within the system of the article and another rejecting its existence altogether. In English, where bare nouns are much more frequent, the theory struggles with a multiplicity of different uses which are difficult to bring together under a single phenomenon. However, close inspection of the occurrences in the corpus makes it possible to suggest, in keeping with psychomechanics, a model where there is a coexistence of an absence of any determiner on the one hand and, on the other, a zero article which may be shown to signify a genuine operation of determination, defined as a transition of the noun from tongue to discourse resulting in its ability to refer. |
