Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Omkara]

We say "Lake Ontario," "Lake Baikal" and "Crater Lake"; but we also say "The Mississippi," "The Yellow River," and "The Red Sea."

I can't get a hold of a clear rule on this one.

We go to New York, see a sign which might read "New York City Museum," but we go to The New York City Museum.

It has to do with the preposition. . .

[poet13]

I'm curious too.

Nice avatar.

[Omkara]

I think that in some cases, since English nouns and adjectives can become verbs, the use of the article prevents this confusion.

For example, . . . "to yellow River" can sound as if the river is going to be yellowed. . .hence, The Yellow River is clearer. Foreign words also need the article to keep it clear...

[yawarakaijin]

There is no grammatical rule that I am aware of. Some nouns take the definite article THE and some do not. Happens quite often geographical locations.

By definition nouns that take the definite article "the" are understood to be known/understood by both the listener and the speaker.

For example. When you say to your friend, "I am going to THE party that you told me about" the listener and speaker both are assumed to understand which party is being talked about.

One knows that there is only ONE Mississippi river and assume both listener and speaker is aware of this fact and thus we say THE Mississippi River is quite long.

This logic breaks down when referring to other geographical locations. We don't say that I went to visit the Mount Fuji do we? In the past, I have simply taught examples to my students and left it at that.

Another more interesting use of the definite article is when we use it to describe things which cannot be assumed to be understood by both the listener and speaker. For example, I am going to the park when there might be 4 or 5 parks all within walking distance of your home. But that is an entirely new lesson.

[Omkara]

The "park" example is good and seems to support my hunch.

First, using the article assumes we both know which park, otherwise we'd say "to the park on 5th St." But, to omit the article can make the noun function like a verb, "I'm going to park," or, "I'm going to park on 5th St." The only time we could omit the article in this case would be when it is clearly a pronoun, such as, "I'm going to Candlestick Park."

Just to drive the point further, "I'm going to candlestick the park."

The function of the article is in part to help distinguish between nouns and verbs.



Any thoughts?

[greedy_bones]

I'm doubtful it has to do with distinction between nouns and verbs. Most nouns have articles, but certain ones don't require it. I think it just comes from the confusion that arises from locations. With locations, many are like people in that there are only one, so no distinction is really necessary. There are some which end up being irregular like school or home which muddle the general rules.

As for the nouns and verbs thing, I'm pretty sure definite articles were used for places prior to using going to as a future tense. I'm not positive, but in a book I read a couple of years ago, it mentioned the first appearance of going to as a future tense marker in the 16th century.

[greedy_bones]

If only other geographical locations were as simple as countries. We only use "the" for names that aren't proper nouns like states,kingdom,republic or union.

[Hyeon Een]

There are rules. Here they are:

[daskalos]

There's always going to be some inconsistency because it's English we're talking about, after all, but I have noticed in teaching this subject that with many geographical names, if the proper noun comes first, we use the article, but if the proper noun comes last, we generally dispense with the article.

Mount Fuji
The Rocky Mountains
Lake Michigan
The Caspian Sea