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A Few 'Language Miniatures'

The Commonest Word in the Language

The social role of the word 'the'

The word 'the' is one you and I use hundreds or even thousands of times every day, so familiar we're hardly aware of it (did you notice that this word makes up more than a third of all the words in the title and subtitle above?). So if we're so familiar with it, we must know what it means. But can we step back and SAY what it means? Words like 'chair' or 'eat' are easy, 'and' is a bit harder ( Miniature No. 11 ), but 'the' seems to resist real explanation - a bit like trying to explain in detail all the mechanisms involved in walking. And the does have a lot of them too: would you have suspected that Webster's dictionary lists 23 distinct meanings? Even though it's extremely difficult to reflect on something we only do subconsciously, let's try anyway to take a closer look at how we're using 'the'.

If you were brave enough to attempt a definition, you probably came up with the same one most dictionaries list first: (a) it refers back to something or someone previously mentioned or at least (b) clearly understood from the context - often just a social one. 'The dog' is an example of (a), and 'the yard' of (b). It turns out, though, that a straightforward reference back to something already mentioned (Go get A CUP, and hand THE CUP to me) is not really very common.

Sometimes the reference back simply relies on cultural knowledge we share: It was a lovely wedding. I kissed the bride or It would have been a better novel if the author had just..., where you and I know that 'wedding' necessarily implies 'a bride' and a 'novel' has to have 'an author'. Often this implication is more subtle: He sat writing all night. The cigarette butts piled up.

What specifies what that definite 'the' is referring to might be not back but ahead: I'm selling the car I BOUGHT LAST YEAR; Tell me the reason WHY YOU DID IT. There are many types of phrases like the ones in capitals, and their function is always to limit the reference, in other words make it definite. This is not really different from the way an adjective limits (=makes definite) the meaning of a noun: an answer, but the right answer.

Continuing to think of all these meanings and usages together, it begins to look as though 'the' doesn't have anything we can call a meaning at all. 'The' is one of those words like articles, demonstratives and possessives (the, a, this, my, ...), prepositions (on, with, in, ...) and conjunctions (because, that, if, ...), whose role is situating the words with real-world reference like nouns, verbs, and adjectives in a grammatical setting - making it possible for us to talk about them in complicated ways.

What does the subtitle above mean when it says that the has an important social role? Often the doesn't refer back or forward to anything at all in what's being said, but rather depends on our shared knowledge of social situations. If we say There was a speech by the mayor, the specific person being referred to is not in the sentence at all, but depends on our extralinguistic knowledge of (a) place (what town we're in), and (b) time (when we're talking about). We can see this idea of variable reference in The treasurer always has to be a member in good standing, where no one person at all is being referred to.

These last examples show we're getting closer to the real role played by the (recall those words 'clearly understood' a moment ago): It's like a little flag signaling what knowledge you and I share. Notice that sometimes there's only an understanding shared by speaker and hearer: Would you open the window, please? Put the cat out. Look back at the examples above: to understand each other, you and I need to have the same idea of what role a bride plays, who the mayor is, and we may agree that neither of us knows (or perhaps even cares) who the present treasurer is. It doesn't need to be said that some people smoke heavily while they work intensely, because we both share that knowledge already.

The real-world function of the in society is to establish a set of understandings - occasionally inside the sentence but most often outside it - that are shared by the speaker and the hearer. It is this set of shared (though normally unconscious) agreements that allow 'the' to be a sign of some definite reference. So every day, all without knowing it, we're constantly reminding each other of endless aspects of the world and its situations that we have in common. Our little word the is a powerful social instrument.

All essays Copyright © 1998-2004 by William Z. Shetter
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