What Does "The" Mean?

[Skwim]

"It’s the most frequent word in the English language, accounting for around 4 percent of all the words we write or speak. It’s everywhere, all the time, so clearly it must be doing something important. Words have meaning. That’s fundamental, isn’t it? So this word “the,” a word that seems to be supporting a significant portion of the entire weight of our language, what does this word mean? It must mean something, right?

We can say, roughly, that “the” means the word it is attached to refers to a specific, individual object. When I say “I have the apple,” I mean a certain apple, not just “an apple”—any old apple, or “apples” in general.

But, of course, it’s not quite that easy. Sometimes “the” doesn’t indicate a specific object, but a whole class of objects. When you say you know how to play “the piano” or that exercise is good for “the heart,” there is no specific piano or heart you have in mind. “The pen is mightier than the sword” isn’t about specific pens or swords or even about specific instances of their metaphorical counterparts, acts of writing and acts of aggression.

“The” does not seem like a difficult word, but it’s very hard to explain to someone who isn’t a native speaker. Why do we say, “I love the ballet,” but not “I love the cable TV”? Why do we say, “I have the flu,” but not “I have the headache”? Why do we say, “winter is the coldest season,” and not “winter is coldest season”? For speakers of Russian, Korean, or any language that doesn’t have a “the,” these are important questions.

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[nilsz]

It is a definite article, specifying whether you are speaking about anything in particular. Because the human mind is flexible, it can sometimes be understood in other manners of speech.

In Scandinavian languages, definiteness is specified by morphing the word, typically by appending '-en', '-a', or '-et' depending on whether the gender of the noun is male, female or neuter.

For instance, in Norwegian:

Gutt (boy) becomes gutten.
Jente (girl) becomes jenta.
Vindu (window) becomes vinduet.

The German language has several definite articles for different combinations of noun genders and grammatical cases.

            Masculine     Neuter        Feminine        Plural
Nominative  der           das           die             die
Accusative  den           das           die             die
Dative      dem           dem           der             den
Genitive    des           des           der             der

For instance, in the title of the famous film "Das Leben der Anderen" meaning "The life of others" "der" is the genetive definite article of the plural Anderen. Genetive case typically signifies possession, as in "Das Leben" (The life) belonging to Anderen (others).

 

[Revoltingest]

One thing I must say about that Skwim fella....
he really knows how to have fun on a Saturday afternoon!

Or should that be "the" Saturday afternoon?

 

[Procopio]

very interesting thread