which is ceorrect and WHY?

1. interaction between writer and reader.

OR

2. interaction between a writer and a reader.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Izzy loves you all,

How about more context, my friend?

Richard

OK. Here you are:

"Unsurprisingly, our awareness and perception of this particular use of language have to be much more astute than in ordinary communication, and we therefore experience the verbal structures of a literary text as elements of dynamic communicative interaction between writer and reader in which our expectations are fulfilled or frustrated and our emotions roused or soothed by incentives in the text whenever we turn to it."

IMO, this is about some **generic** writer and reader, thus no article.

Thanks for the extra context, Ismael.

Jerry's got the right idea, I think, about the fact that if we eliminate the article in such a phrase, we make it more generic, more abstract.

It's perfectly fine to use the indefinite article here, too, but it makes these people less abstract.

Here are a couple of more examples with (a) being more abstract or generic than (b):

1.
(a) There's a special bond that develops very early between mother and baby.
(b) There's a special bond that develops very early between a mother and (a) baby.

2.
(a) Communication between doctor and nurse can mean the difference between life and death.
(b) Communication between a doctor and (a) nurse can mean the difference between life and death.

a Richard the Richard Richard

Ok.

But when I say [a mother] isn't it still generic because it doesn't refer to specific mother and that applies to most of the examples you provided?

IMO, "a mother" is less abstract than "mother" because you still take one/some mother out of the set of all ones.

Read some technical and medical abstracts and you'll see what prevails. To me, the Google Books stats are clear:

614 on "communication between doctor and patient"
http://books.google.com/books?q=%22communication+betwee...2+&btnG=Search+Books

16 on "communication between a doctor and a patient"
http://books.google.com/books?q=%22communication+betwee...22&btnG=Search+Books

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Marius Hancu,

Ok.

What is the difference in meaning between:

1. A mother must take care of her child.

AND

2. Mother must take care of her child.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Izzy loves you all,

The 2nd is too cold. The first is more personal and preferable in this context.

Also, the 2nd can mean:

MY/OUR Mother must take care of me/us.

which means more confusion.

Not only that, but a general principle is idiomatically spelled as in 1.

Your original example isn't such a principle.

You just have to read and listen and get used to the idiomatic way.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Marius Hancu,

I don't understand how [a mother] is more personal though it doesn't refer to any specific mother as [Mother] doesn't either.

What do you think?

2. Mother must take care of her child.

is simply unidiomatic if you don't mean:

MY/OUR Mother

No one speaks that way.

"Mother" -- without any article -- means either your own mother, or the mother of someone you are talking to, who knows which mother you are referring to.

That's what it usually means. Of course, there could be times when "mother" stands for the generic "mother," or the idea of mother, as in the first paragraph in this link:

http://quotations.about.com/cs/specialdays/a/about_mother.htm

In this link, you will also see examples of "a mother" and "the mother."

Now, "a mother" and "the mother" carry the rules of all singular nouns when used with the indefinite article or the definite article. When representing a class, you can say "a mother," as you would say "a tree," "a house," "a car," "a lion," etc. "The mother" is very similar to mean one of a class.

Of course, there are other rules for "a" and "the." For example, we use "a mother," or "a lion" or "a tree" for the first mention; after that, we refer to "the mother," "the lion," or "the tree." And, there are so many rules for articles that we couldn't possibly list them here, but all the rules for articles would apply.
______

As Richard has said, sometimes the article is omitted to refer to a general class of something, particularly a pair of singular count nouns, nouns that often go together:

There has to be communication between doctor and patient.
This house is under lock and key.
You can eat this with chopsticks or with fork and knife.
There is a special bond between husband and wife, between mother and child.

All the nouns above could be stated as well with "a" in front, and, occasionally with "the."

Rachel

You may find something useful here:

The Use and Non-Use of Articles
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslart.html

How to Use Articles (a/an/the)
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/540/01/

Dear Rachel and Richard,

Thanks a lot.

Don't the preposition [between, with, under,] and thlike, have something to do with absence of the indefinite article [a] or [an]? i.e when there is a preposition, the tendency to omit [a] or [an].


1. There has to be communication [between] doctor and patient.
2. This house is [under] lock and key.
3. You can eat this with chopsticks or [with] fork and knife.
4. There is a special bond [between] husband and wife, [between] mother and child.

What do you think?

That's an interesting observation, Ismael, but I don't think the prepositions have that kind of influence on their objects (the nouns that follow them).

In every example you've cited except for No. 2, I can just as easily use the indefinite articles as not. It's not that one is "grammatical" and the other isn't.

I guess we haven't clearly communicated the difference between that abstract perception of those pairs without the article and the more concrete perception of them with it. Maybe we can think of other ways to get this across.

As for No. 2, under lock and key is a pat phrase, so we don't have the option of saying "under a lock and (a) key."

Richard

quote:

As for No. 2, under lock and key is a pat phrase, so we don't have the option of saying "under a lock and (a) key."

what is a [pat phrase]?

VERY roughly, IMO:

- no article: the least specific or personal, the most abstract

- "a" article: middle

- "the" article: the most specific or personal, the least abstract

I'm sorry I know the discussion has been a long time ago. But I am new here and I am lost. I thought there should always be an article for a singular count noun, and it must be plural to become a generic noun?! So, it is either

1. interaction between writers and readers.
or
2. interaction between a writer and a reader.

Why are you guys saying "interaction between writer and reader" is correct? Also the examples suggested by Rachel, is it ONLY because they are in pairs?

- There has to be communication between doctor and patient.
- This house is under lock and key.
- You can eat this with chopsticks or with fork and knife.
- There is a special bond between husband and wife, between mother and child.

OMG! Singular count nouns without any articles? Are there any rules that can tell me when to omit the article in front of a singular count noun? I just learned from another discussion here that one of the cases is when it comes to the head of an organization, but I am sure there must be a lot more surprises for me!

Thanks!

Hello Alexwlth:

There are some exceptions to the rule that a singular count noun must have an article (or other determiner) in front of it.

Before listing some of these exceptions,though, I do want to emphasize that almost all of the time, singular count nouns need this article. This is very important.

But, you are very observant, Alexwlth, to note that with certain well-known pairs of nouns, the article is omitted. Examples of such phrases are law and order, salt and pepper, brother and sister, and many more.

Swan* notes that these noun pairs without articles come particularly after prepositions: with knife and fork, with hat and coat,from top to bottom, on land and sea, and in other expressions like arm in arm, inch by inch, day after day, husband and wife.

I will add another category here: transportation. We would say:

We came here by train.

They always travel by plane

Sally went there by bus.

These expressions, though, do not follow this omission if any modification is made to the noun. We would not say that a person travels by a train, by planes, or by a big bus. If there is a change to the noun itself, the regular rules for singular count nouns apply. We would say on a train, on a plane, or on a big bus.
_______

Swan notes several count nouns and kinds of count nouns that appear without articles. Here are things he mentions:

to/at/in school/ university / college
to/ at/ from church
to/ in/ into/ out of bed / jail / prison....

and many more at topic 70. Many of these can also have the article when you are talking about a specific building. For example, a criminal goes to prison. 'Prison' here is the abstract idea which means being imprisoned. But, if you are talking about the
specific prison building itself, you would say, 'The prison where Jack was sent is in upstate New York.'

Please stay tuned for more discussions on this very topic: Singular count nouns almost always have an article in front of them, but there are some exceptions.
_______
*Practical English Usage, 3rd edition, by Michael Swan. Oxford 2005

Thank you very much for the always enlightening information, Rachel.