Talk:Zero definite article

Surely these are examples of the zero indefinite article:
 * She is in hospital.
 * He was taken to prison.

as they mean the same as
 * She is in a hospital.
 * He was taken to a prison.

i.e. an unspecified hospital/prison rather than a particular (known or previously identified) one. Ben Finn 21:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

In some nonstandard forms of English English, the is omitted in places that standard English has it, leading to sentences like this:

* I'm going to store. (I'm going to the store)

* I'm driving down road. (I'm driving down the road)

This is not actually the case - the definite article is not omitted, but, as the sections goes on to say, is actually audible in a "slight pause" or, more accurately, the insertion of a glottal stop. This is therefore an example of Definite Article Reduction, not the Zero Definite Article. The same goes for

Following that we get something like 'Am going tuh _ pub'. You may also hear 'Am going __ pub' where the 'to' has also completely disappeared apart from a pause. The sound of the 'T' may also be tacked onto the end of the preceding word even if the pause is present.

Which is actually self-contradictory ("disappeared apart from a pause")  Does this count as common knowledge?

--Petitphoque (talk) 10:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyedit and changes vis-a-vis above comments
1) Removed language that talked directly to reader using "you".

2) Reworded sentence about "the" disappearing, per Petitphoque.

3) Removed third example "We went to bed" since it means neither "We went to the bed" nor "We went to a bed", but uses "bed" in the sense of "sleep".

4) I agree with Ben Finn that the first (now two) examples are sentences where an indefinite article is replaced, not a definite article. However I did not rework the article to that point.

67.169.127.166 (talk) 06:40, 30 April 2008 (UTC)