Using the indefinite articles

[Francoise Rosset]

This pattern does explain why Russians and émigrés sometimes say "one" 
where we would expect "a."
e.g.
"I read one book on this subject," meaning generally "a book," not "I 
read just one" -- which is what many Anglophones might understand.

Don't think the French have this issue, because even though our 
indefinite article is the word for "one," we have been clear on the 
correspondence between le/la=the and un/une=a.
-FR


On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:33:56 -0500
  Robert Orr <colkitto at ROGERS.COM> wrote:
> could we have this discussion in p;ublic?  looks very worthwhile!
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Goloviznin Konstantin" 
><kottcoos at mail.ru>
> To: <SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
> Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 6:53 AM
> Subject: [SEELANGS] Using the indefinite articles
> 
> 
>> Hi, all.
>>
>> I was a bit suprisied to discover the indefinite article in ... 
>>Russian. But it really exists (in spite of the Official Grammar being 
>>blind on this). Just compare:
>>
>> Есть у нас ОДИН(= количество) мужик в деревне ... нам бы еще одного.
>>
>> И
>>
>> Жил был ОДИН (= какой-то, некоторый) старик со своею старухой у 
>>самого синего моря.
>>
>> According the "iron-made" grammar rule the indefinite article must 
>>be always used with singular countable nouns. From another hand live 
>>speech trespasses this rule any time when a possibility appears: just 
>>to keep words in fluency I have to use the indefinite article 
>>otherwisely I don't use it. So we have two rules on using the article 
>>in English: formal and informal.
>>
>> According the informal rule the following sentence in Russian works: 
>>зашел я как-то в ОДНУ фирму. Speaking - зашел я как-то в фирму - is 
>>not convinient.
>>
>> What do you think about those two rules? Let me know!
>>
>> With respect,
>> Konstantin.
>>
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Francoise Rosset, Associate Professor
Chair, Russian and Russian Studies
Coordinator, German and Russian
Wheaton College
Norton, Massachusetts 02766
Office: (508) 285-3696
FAX:   (508) 286-3640

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