conundrum

[John Dunn]

To my ear 'a confectionery and a pasta factory' serves the purpose perfectly well, since the repeated indefinite article makes it clear that two different factories are involved (cf. a blue and a red car vs. a blue and red car).  The alternative would be to omit the indefinite articles and use the plural: 'they built confectionery and pasta factories'; this does not specify one of each, but this may not be important or may become apparent elsewhere in the text.

John.

________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Sarah Hurst [sarahhurst at ALASKA.NET]
Sent: 01 May 2012 02:56
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] conundrum

I have never heard of the form "a confectionery and a pasta factories". I
can't believe it could be correct. Usually if we want to reduce we say "a
confectionery factory and a pasta one." That sounds a little odd in this
case, which is why I went with using "factory" twice. But it works if you
say "I saw a blue car and a red one". You couldn't say "I saw a blue and a
red cars".

Sarah Hurst

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