the
part of speech
article (definite)
meaning for a pupil
1) The points to a thing you already know about or that has been named. tree →
2) The is used when there is only one of something: the sun, the sky, the world. tree →
3) The is used before some names of groups, rivers, oceans and places: the Pacific, the USA. tree →
4) The before «more … the more» shows two things grow together: «the more you read, the better you get». tree →
5) (casual) «The» is often dropped in quick talk and texts: «bus is late», «kids are fine»; «da» or «teh» are typos or slang spellings. tree →
6) (formal) Exams pile up «the» in long phrases: «the aggregate of the quantities», «the remainder of the sum». tree →
sense in the lessons
marks things already known: the table, the board; it shows the problem is talking about the same thing as before; phrases: «the first», «the rest», «the same», «the whole», «the most»; in casual talk «the» goes missing («bus at 8:40», «nan's coming»), or sounds «th'»; in rough talk «the bloody bus»; in the exam voice «the aforementioned», «the said quantity», «the remainder»
examples
- On the board: cups = 1. tree →
- The apples are on the table. tree →
- How many cards does the boy have now? tree →
- The sun is a star. tree →
- She is the tallest girl in the class. tree →
- We swam in the Atlantic Ocean. tree →
- The rest of the cookies are in the jar. tree →
- The more you practise, the faster you get. tree →
- bus at 8:40, its 8:25 now, how long (no «the» in a text). tree →
- The bloody dog ate the last 2 sausages. tree →
- The aforementioned crates contain 12 bottles each. tree →
- Determine the remainder when the sum is divided by 5. tree →
- "Who's there?" asked the old lady. tree →
note
Said «thuh» before a consonant sound and «thee» before a vowel sound (the apple). Use «a/an» for something new, «the» for something known: «I saw a dog. The dog barked.» Carries no operation clue; but «the» shows a thing already counted. In texts and quick talk «the» is often missing: the meaning stays the same. «the aforementioned» and «the said» point back to things already named.
In the corpora
- When a parent seems frazzled after work, it is usually the workload, not anything the child did.
- Knowing this helps you understand why a family's week is planned round a piece of paper on the fridge.
- Night shifts mean working through the night and sleeping in the day; nurses, drivers, bakers and warehouse workers often do them.
- Overtime is working extra hours beyond the normal ones; sometimes it is paid at a higher rate, sometimes not paid at all.
- Some people go to work ill because they can't afford to lose the pay, which spreads germs to everyone else.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «the» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.