Why is there no the before president and captain?
They elected him president.
She was made captain of the team.
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I've always taken the first example to have an elided "as". "They elected him as president." – Michael Brown Jan 31 '12 at 03:53
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1Related: Should there be an article before “mayor” in “the role of mayor”? – RegDwigнt Apr 27 '12 at 09:04
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Possible duplicate of Why do people omit the definite article? – Edwin Ashworth Nov 12 '19 at 19:15
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The ‘Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English’ (LSGSWE) explains it thus:
When a predicative noun phrase names a unique role or job, either a zero article or the is used.
The is not normally found after words like elected (and re-elected) which show that someone has been appointed to an office. The LSGSWE’s own example is ‘Lukman was re-elected OPEC President in June.’ In other cases, however, it’s optional. The LSGSWE’s second example is: ‘Simon Burns is the chairman of the appeal board.’ That could equally well appear as ‘Simon Burns is chairman . . .’
Barrie England
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1One also commonly uses the verb "To make" intransitively, meaning "to attain the rank of," e.g. "I made captain," "I finally made partner." – Pete Wilson Jan 30 '12 at 11:04
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For once, I've voted for closure on the grounds of there being a later, better duplicate. Longman's explanation is simplistic, and fails to distinguish the zero article from the null article (we had chicken for tea / they elected him President). Note that 'a' is a possible insertion without a vast semantic switch in the former, but 'the' in the latter. There is a gradience of definiteness / gravitas: zero ... indefinite ... definite ... null. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 12 '19 at 19:21