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> Noun phrases need determiners on them or they feel ungrammatical. Nature abhors a vacuum. One giant leap for mankind. The rules for when articles can/must

• philsnow 11y ago
  Read on: > Proper nouns like George Washington don't need a determiner. "Nature" is a proper noun (there is, after all, only one.). "One" is a determiner. "mankind" is a proper noun. Absolutely agree that, in colloquial English, the rules for when articles / determiners (and any other part of speech really) can be elided are complicated. I quite routinely ask people "time is it", leaving out the "what".
  • peterfirefly 11y ago
    Nature is a proper noun? Okay, I'll grant you Nature, Science, Communism, and Christendom. But mankind, too? Really? Change, too? ("Change (abstract noun) is hard." vs "The change (menopause) is hard.") I chose the "One giant leap for mankind" example not because I didn't know that "one" is a determiner but because "one" and "a[n]" usually can't substitute for each other (with the usual complicated rules). Danish doesn't have this distinction at all, using the same two words for the cardinal number and the indeterminate article. I guess my point really was that determiners are hard -- and calling them adjectives doesn't help.
  • thaumasiotes 11y ago
    No, mankind is not a proper noun. It's a mass noun, like sand, iron, or snow. Mass nouns and plural nouns don't necessarily need determiners, depending on how you're using them.