3 ms·

As a speaker from language without articles - it doesn't mean anything ;)

• jeffmcmahan 10y ago
  There's a clear difference between "bring me an apple" and "bring me the apple". The latter requires that there is either only one apple available, or requires some special contextual knowledge to comply with.
  • ajuc 10y ago
    My language solves this with equivalent of: "Bring me apple" vs "Bring me that apple". I still don't understand the need for "a". Surely if you don't qualify a noun at all you mean "any". I guess "the" is like "distinct" in sql, so it may be useful to catch "too many rows" errors. It was a joke, BTW.
    • jeffmcmahan 10y ago
      >> I guess "the" is like "distinct" in sql That's original Russellian theory, in a nutshell (http://www.uvm.edu/~lderosse/courses/lang/Russell(1905).pdf http://www.uvm.edu/~lderosse/courses/lang/Russell(1905).pdf). None of its many variants cover the data. >> It was a joke Fair enough!