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Measuring the frequency of words in almost every English book or document (which is long enough) ends up ranking the word 'the' as the most used word. Is there any solid function the word 'the' plays in context of a sentence other than making the sentence "sound right"?

For example, let me strip-out the word 'the' from this question's title and the above paragraph:

Is word 'the' unnecessary in English language?

Measuring frequency of words in almost every English book or document (which is long enough) ends up ranking word 'the' as most used word. Is there any solid function word 'the' plays in context of a sentence other than making sentence "sound right"?

I believe, greater the frequency of a word used across all the books and documents in a language, lesser will be its requirement in determining the context of the subject being spoken. There is no specific example I could point out, in which the word 'the' actually plays a vital role in describing anything. So, why isn't this word removed from the English language? I'm asking this question because, I'm not able to understand the requirement of the word 'the' in sentences. Removing the word 'the' almost always never tends to change the meaning of the sentences.

Sreram
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    And then you use the word "the" 20 times in your question. – Klyzx Jun 17 '18 at 21:30
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    I see problem in your post. Now, which word was missing in my previous sentence between see and problem? Was it a, was it no, ... or was it the? – Dan Bron Jun 17 '18 at 21:34
  • You missed a the in your 'stripped-out' paragraph ('the context of a sentence'). – Mark Beadles Jun 17 '18 at 21:38
  • @DanBron that's a bad example, it pretty clear what you mean without adding an article. It just doesn't sound natural (because we are used to using articles in English). – JJJ Jun 17 '18 at 21:40
  • What if you are identifying members of a gang and specifically *the* one who hit you? "Yes, that's one, but it's not [*the*] one." – Jim Jun 17 '18 at 21:42
  • Possible duplicate of Are there any simple rules for choosing the definite vs. indefinite (vs. none) article? – Mark Beadles Jun 17 '18 at 21:42
  • @JJJ - re: Dan's sentence. But it becomes ambiguous whether there is only one error or multiple errors. – Jim Jun 17 '18 at 21:44
  • @Klyzx I tried my best to keep my post grammatically correct. That was my whole point. The word 'the' is used too often in sentences. – Sreram Jun 17 '18 at 21:44
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    Dangerous to remove things from a language. Definite articles were banned in Soviet Russia, and look what happened there. – Michael Harvey Jun 17 '18 at 21:45
  • @Jim that example sounds right... the word 'the' in your sentence points-out someone from a group! – Sreram Jun 17 '18 at 21:47
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    Note the difference between 'This question is most senseless' and 'This question is the most senseless'. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 17 '18 at 22:17
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    Please include the research you’ve done. Collins Cobuild have a 100+ page monograph on articles (and it's not comprehensive). Assuming about 60 pages on the definite article, which usages do you consider unnecessary? Do any remain? – Edwin Ashworth Jun 17 '18 at 22:19
  • @JJJ Oh? Which did I mean then? Warning: this is a trick question. I didn’t mean any of them and I can write a justification, ex-post-facto, for any word you didn’t choose. Which is, in.m fact, the point. – Dan Bron Jun 17 '18 at 22:25
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    Grabs popcorn. The amount of respectable users in this comment section who can't imagine life without articles is hilarious. Hey news flash! Most languages don't have them. At the same time they do have other crucial features like 70 different consonant sounds, or 15 cases, or three grammatical numbers, or genders for all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and even verbs. All features that English is sorely lacking. And some of which it did used to have, but then actually got rid of. They all conveyed additional information. And they all got removed. Your argument is invalid. Grabs more popcorn. – RegDwigнt Jun 17 '18 at 22:27
  • @RegDwigнt It’s not that it’s impossible not to have them, of course, it’s that they’re “not useless” but more importantly “not English” without them. You’d be talking about some other language. Sure, we can imagine English without articles. And also without written vowels. And also without affixes, or as agglutinative, or whatever, but then you’re talking about another language, which will make it easier to talk about some things and harder to talk about others. It’s the Sorties paradox. Articles convey meaning and provide function in English, and no, you can’t have English without them – Dan Bron Jun 17 '18 at 22:32
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    This is a good question that warrants a solid answer. Yes, it sounds incredibly stupid to absolutely any native speaker. And that is precisely what makes it interesting to any linguist. Upvoted, favorited, and will reopen if it gets closed. This kind of questions is exactly what this site is about. – RegDwigнt Jun 17 '18 at 22:32
  • @RegDwigнt - I'm sure we could get rid of it if we added something else. Otherwise the lengths we'd have to go to to convey the same meaning without it would be too high to be practical. (imho) – Jim Jun 17 '18 at 22:33
  • Many thanks to @RegDwight for pointing out the linguistic significance of this question for future readers. – English Student Jun 17 '18 at 22:40
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    @Jim not necessarily true. Observe. You love specific girls, you say "I love the girls". Fair enough. Now, you love girls in general, you say "I love girls". Whoa whoa buddy hold on. Where's your indefinite article? Oh, you say you're already conveying that by not using the definite article! Right, right. Okay. Sounds reasonable. So what exactly is preventing you from not doing the same thing in singular? I love the girl. I love girl. – RegDwigнt Jun 17 '18 at 22:40
  • @DanBron I'm not saying your sentence is not ambiguous as it is now and with the English language as we know it. I'm just saying that you could omit them in specific cases to have specific meaning. For example, English has done this with what's called the bare plural. I agree with you though that having the different articles is actually quite handy, I don't see why we should do away with them ;). As RegDwight says, however, it's an interesting question nonetheless. – JJJ Jun 17 '18 at 22:42
  • @RegDwigнt - That's one use case where it works. What about my example above? – Jim Jun 17 '18 at 22:52
  • Yes, there is plenty of "solid information" about what the definite article does in English. And it is not contained in Purdue OWL, which was quoted by @EnglishStudent. It exists in linguistic journals. Some of the ways articles are used are included in the answer by GoDucks to the question already mentioned above: Are there any simple rules for choosing the definite vs. indefinite (vs. none) article?. – Arm the good guys in America Jun 18 '18 at 04:50
  • The articles in English don't just affect the word that comes after them, or the phrase they are part of. They also signal to the listener certain things, such as whether or not the speaker is attempting to introduce a new topic into the conversation. So articles operate on much larger a basis than individual sentences. – Arm the good guys in America Jun 18 '18 at 05:31
  • @Kris I thought that my question will be a better fit here than in https://ell.stackexchange.com/ . Because, ELL is about learning the English language, and I will have to refrain myself to asking questions that help me learn the language. But here, I can ask questions that addresses its fundamental structure (https://english.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic). – Sreram Jun 18 '18 at 11:47
  • @Kris In my question, I have addressed the fact that removing a word which is used in almost every paragraph that was ever written, would not actually convey anything lesser than it originally intended to convey (at-least in most cases). Thus, even if a question like this causes controversy, isn't it a better fit here than in ELL? please correct me if I'm wrong. – Sreram Jun 18 '18 at 11:55
  • "... I will have to refrain myself from asking ...."; "I can ask questions that address ...."; "... the fact that ..." -- no it isn't a fact, not even in most cases. There's no controversy, every word has a function. – Kris Jun 18 '18 at 12:11
  • @Kris, thanks for the corrections! I think "refrain" should have been "constrain". And "to" should have remained "to". After having asked this question, I do realize that the word 'the' has a solid function. But I don't think this is the case for all sentences. Example: (the one in my post is good enough, I think). From Lawrence's answer, this sentence: "He may be the king but he isn't king" is a good example for depicting the function of 'the'. But the meaning of many other sentences can be accurately incurred even if the word 'the' is absent. Do you agree? – Sreram Jun 18 '18 at 12:39
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    Ungrammatical constructions are not necessarily meaningless or ambiguous. There are pitfalls, though. One of the tags to this post is grammatical-structure, right? – Kris Jun 18 '18 at 12:47
  • @Kris yes, it is not right to have this question tagged "grammatical-structure". Year after year, new words are added to the English language. It would be much better if even the grammatical rules are modified progressively to simplify the language. I'm an amateur in English literature. You people can spot out more areas that can be simplified, trying to make the language less ambiguous and more concise. – Sreram Jun 18 '18 at 13:38
  • Possible duplicate of Have there been any movements/tendencies to remove definite and indefinite articles from English in the recent history of English? – Mari-Lou A Jun 18 '18 at 14:57
  • On what ground is this post considered off-topic? Is it simply marked as "off-topic" because of the controversy it creates? – Sreram Jun 18 '18 at 19:56
  • @Seram How people vote is inscrutable. From the comments it seems more like they don't understand hypotheticals. That said, this question may be a better fit over on linguistics.SE (given that any discussion will almost necessarily involve similar situations in other languages). That said, voted to reopen. – Mitch Jun 18 '18 at 20:11
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    @Sreram to simplify the language That's not really possible. If you try to remove complexity in one area, complexity will increase in other areas so that the same information can be conveyed. For example, English has very simple morphology, but restrictive word-order rules, but languages like Spanish have fewer word-order rules but more complex morphology – Azor Ahai -him- Jun 18 '18 at 20:36
  • In the linked question I posted above, the user also argues that the definite article adds nothing of value, but both of you seem to ignore the point that English is not the only language that has articles. Why "specifically" pick on English and not Italian which uses articles with adjectives, names of kin, names of countries, and even with (informally) names of people. Why not French, or Spanish? Why do articles in English annoy or confuse you so much? The definite and indefinite articles are here to stay for at least another 50 years, after that is anyone's guess. – Mari-Lou A Jun 18 '18 at 21:03
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    It is common when you first learn a foreign language to think that any feature not in your own language is unnecessary in the new language. But, of course, that is not true. – GEdgar Jun 18 '18 at 21:13
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    Unfortunately, I don't speak any language without determiners. That said, I am sure those languages create the meanings conveyed by the and a by other means. I think this is bad question. What about Spanish, French, German, Italian [Mari-LouA], Portuguese, Romanian, modern and ancient Greek? Would you remove them there too? There is a specificity of semantic value with determiners. – Lambie Jun 18 '18 at 21:30
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    @RegDwigнt I appreciate you waiting to be the fifth reopen voter on this post, exercising your community power, not your mod power. Thank you. – Dan Bron Jun 18 '18 at 23:42
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    @DanBron +1 for your comment to Reg. (Re your very first comment here, the isn't a quantifier, so comparing an example with a quantifier like no and an article like the doesn't show anything. Languages that have no articles akin to a or the, still have quantifiers.) – Araucaria - Him Jun 19 '18 at 17:14
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    @RegDwigнt i can say "i love these girls". – tsayper Jun 21 '18 at 05:09
  • @tsayper I am at a loss how that relates to anything that I said. Is that an argument in favor of my point or against it? It kinda cuts both ways. I'm confused. – RegDwigнt Jun 21 '18 at 18:43

3 Answers3

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No, "the" isn't unnecessary in the English language. It has an important role as a familiar component of the English language, of course, but it is also important functionally.

For example, there is a spectrum between most indefinite and most definite. That is, you might talk about something without caring about the specific instance (e.g. he ate an egg - it doesn't matter which egg), or you might care about which specific instance you're talking about (e.g. he ate the egg - that particular one).

In particular, 'the' helps to differentiate between referencing a specific instance and the essence of that specific instance. Here's an example:

  • "He is a king" - he is one king out of an unspecified number.
  • "He is the king" - he is a particular king.
  • "He is (null article) king" - he embodies the essence of kingship.

Compare the last two by considering this sentence: "He may be the king but he isn't king". This expresses that although he may have the title of 'king', he doesn't have something of the essence of one. It might be used to describe a pretender to the throne who manages to be crowned, but who doesn't hold the loyalty of his (supposed) subjects. The definite article is instrumental in teasing out this nuance.

Lawrence
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  • I understand. The word 'the' helps us differentiate between "the king" and "king". Can we assume "king" to represent the title and "the king" to represent what the person truly is? Then this changes the meaning of the sentence: "He may be the king but he isn't king". he may have the powers of a king but he does not hold the title king. It must basically depend on the previous sentences or the context of the paragraph. – Sreram Jun 18 '18 at 12:46
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    @Sreram It's the other way around: the king would refer to the title whereas the null-articled king would refer to a personal quality. – Lawrence Jun 18 '18 at 12:48
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    Hm, a couple of down-votes. I wonder what the voters deem to be problematic with this answer. – Lawrence Jun 18 '18 at 18:11
  • Is this question really off-topic, taking this: https://english.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic into account? – Sreram Jun 18 '18 at 18:57
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    Hi Lawrence, don't worry, I removed on long, well-thought out answer due to hounding. You are the only one who has suggested the context in which (the, a,null set) and suggest semantic weight. Bravol. – Lambie Jun 18 '18 at 21:52
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    @Sreram I think it's squarely on-topic here and that asking it in the negative, as you have, brings out your point better than phrasing it in the positive "Is 'the' necessary ...?" Your question prompts something of a gut reaction among fluent English speakers, like being asked "Is air unnecessary for breathing? After all, consider the fish." The immediate response isn't necessarily the considered response. In any case, your question is of interest to linguists and serious English language enthusiasts, 2 of the 3 'intended audience' groups, so it's on topic here. – Lawrence Jun 19 '18 at 00:11
  • @Lambie Thank you. I suspect the down votes here might have to do with addressing only one 'counterexample' - but to the question "is it unnecessary", I thought that sufficed. – Lawrence Jun 19 '18 at 00:14
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    What makes this such a polarizing Q & A @ Lawrence? You got +4/-2 votes already. My answer got +7/-5 and OP's Q got +8/-6 so the net score of all three of us is still on 2! That's somewhat unusual here, I think. The Q also got closed and reopened but all credit goes to OP @Sreram for asking a well developed and thought-provoking question which re-sparked my interest in ELU. I like your answer as well! – English Student Jun 19 '18 at 01:56
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    @EnglishStudent Quite right - the scores and closure/reopening in short order did give EL&U a bit more excitement than usual :) . I think it's the questioning of fundamentals that brings it out. Take Maths as a simpler analogy. We can build things up from the '4 basic operations'. These can go down further to just "+". Going beyond that brings you into the realm of computability and the Church-Rosser theorems etc. The simplest things are the hardest to explain ... because explanations typically require breaking things down, and 'because it sounds right' isn't a satisfying answer. – Lawrence Jun 19 '18 at 05:22
  • Yes indeed, thanks @Lawrence! We also learn a lot by trying to explain the basics... I would like to see one of our expert linguists answer this question. – English Student Jun 19 '18 at 06:21
  • Expert linguist might say that the question as posed is not linguistically relevant. – Lambie Jun 21 '18 at 17:30
  • @Lambie In that case, the OP will have to make do with musings from the rest of us. :) – Lawrence Jun 22 '18 at 05:23
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It all depends on what you mean by 'necessary'.

If you mean to make things follow English grammar the answer is a definitive 'yes'. The grammar demands it. Dropping it is what foreigners who don't have articles in their native language do mistakenly. But it's obvious you knew that.

So let's suppose, counter to reality, that we don't care about grammar, or that English grammar allows dropping articles.

If you mean to communicate the idea of a previously mentioned item, also yes, it is very necessary, if you intentionally want to point out this previous mention. Intentional, deliberate meaning is necessary. If you need for it to be explicit, then it is necessary.

If the context helps to disambiguate that it is a new thing or a previously mentioned thing, then maybe it's not necessary. In, "I ate cookie; cookie made me sick", it would be perverse for the second instance to refer to anything other than the first instance of 'cookie'.

Now if what you're really asking is whether a definite ness (the need for a definite article) is necessary in all languages, then that is a no. Many languages do not have a need for an obligatory article. (most European languages need an article; Russian is a big exception). And if you need to point out a new thing vs an old thing, use 'one' or 'this' respectively ('I ate one cookie; this cookie made me sick').

As to your expected phenomenon, I don't want you to go away thinking that we don't see what you see. I have to agree with you that you could eliminate almost all articles and you'd still understand what the author intended.

But as to your essential question, why isn't 'the' just removed from the English language, languages just don't work like that. No authority says what's in a human language; it's all by common usage.

Maybe you mean why do people bother to continue using it since it wastes so much energy. Again appealing to human language, it's not a uniform coding device. Word frequencies almost always follow some kind of Zipf curve. Get rid of one and the language will recalibrate, pushing some around. There will always be a highest frequency word. Also, because of expectations of English, just the slot to fill, that's enough to need it. It's sometimes a very useful semantic notion, to differentiate between a new thing and a previously mentioned thing. No big deal to always mention it. You always can. You can always do this in Russian; of course you'd sound weird for always insisting on specifying which noun you are referring to, but it won't be ungrammatical.

This all seems so negative, not the direction you were hoping for. Sure, if we were designing a whole new language, we probably wouldn't make articles obligatory, just like we probably wouldn't gender all our nouns or have inflections for case or agreement or any similar redundancies. But since definiteness is expected by speakers of English, articles to sign this are necessary.

So in the end, the answer 'No, you can't remove it because that's not grammatical English' is legitimate. And the answer to a reworded question is 'Yes, a differentiation between a definite or indefinite noun is only optional if you look at all languages'.

Mitch
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Articles including "the" are necessary in English, not only because they are integral to the syntax and grammar that form the structure of the language, but also because they convey some important elements of meaning that are currently communicated briefly and efficiently through the use of articles.

I am Indian just like you, and I can see where your question comes from. We Indians are used to understanding English without giving much importance to articles, not least because many Indians (not you and I) don't use them properly, and we learned to do without.

[Members please note: this Q is therefore not trivial or a duplicate but an outcome of how non-native speakers perceive the structure of the English language relative to its applied function.]

For many non-native English speakers like Chinese and Indians, the only function of the English language is often to convey some sort of literal meaning in communication:

I not going school today.

Father asked me go to bank and pay bill.

This is rudimentary English spoken/written without basic expertise, but we can infer the correct meaning most of the time, even if someone did not include the article a/ an/ the. However, articles serve some important functions to convey precise meanings that don't need to be guessed at:

Definite Article: the

The definite article is used before singular and plural nouns when the noun is specific or particular. "The" signals that the noun is definite, that it refers to a particular member of a group. For example:

"The dog that bit me ran away." Here, we're talking about a specific dog, the dog that bit me (...)

"I saw the elephant at the zoo." Here, we're talking about a specific noun. Probably there is only one elephant at the zoo.

Source: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/540/01/

Grammaticality is often the main consideration. To write the same sentences as "dog that bit me ran away" and "I saw elephant at zoo" would be considered ungrammatical and a sign of underdeveloped English skills, even if a competent English user did it thinking the article superfluous. That's because articles are part and parcel of the language, and expected in both speech and writing.

However, the definite article does convey special and important meaning when it picks a particular noun out of a group of similar nouns, or creates a sense of "the most fitting"/ "the absolute" which meaning would be lost by omitting "the": as in

Spain is the team to beat at this World Cup (the best of all teams)

Mahatmaji was the personification of human virtues (the absolute exemplar, among all people)

Kim is the man for the job (just the right man for the job!)

Maybe the meaning is clear in most cases without the use of "the." That doesn't mean that articles including "the" can be omitted without disrupting the formal structure of a language that has articles. Even the informal spoken form is influenced by this structure. This is the form the language has evolved into over centuries.

All languages including French, Spanish, Hindi and Tamil have such words that look unnecessary from outside but are integral to the syntax and grammar when looked at "from inside." Articles like "the" are essential in English -- not necessarily to convey meaning (although the meaning they convey is often significant), but for being grammatical, and to preserve the structural integrity of the language. Rather more importantly it defines the language. To make this point more effectively I quote here Dan Bron's comment under the question:

It’s not that it’s impossible not to have them, of course, it’s that they’re “not useless” but more importantly “not English” without them. You’d be talking about some other language. Sure, we can imagine English without articles. And also without written vowels. And also without affixes, or as agglutinative, or whatever, but then you’re talking about another language, which will make it easier to talk about some things and harder to talk about others. It’s the Sorties paradox. Articles convey meaning and provide function in English, and no, you can’t have English without them.

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