at a zero-to-eighteen-month level of a typical development (article use)

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Alexey86 said:
I've found such examples:

1. Fifty workers and customers huddled for safety on a second floor as it was raked with bullets.
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/16/...r-store-owners-fear-fundamentalists-rise.html

2. The clinic is not more than a warren of rooms on a second floor that is reached only by stairs, making it a daunting climb for weakened patients.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/18/world/as-aids-ravages-caribbean-governments-confront-denial.html

3. He said police first photographed him for a biometrics database, took him down a long cinderblock hallway on a second floor, and handcuffed him to a bench bolted to the floor.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-homan-square-black-site
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Excellent examples. You can definitely work with those. I think they illustrate my explanation about instantiations very well. Each second floor is one instance of a second floor. You cannot interpret them to mean that each building has multiple second floors.

Using the definite article would be quite inappropriate in these contexts as the building in question has not been specified. You can't refer to 'the' second floor if you don't know which building you're talking about.



I really prefer the word explanation to exception.
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Me too.
 
But you wouldn't say "He's on a fifth floor", right, Frank? Or would you? From what I gathered reading GS's, Piscean's and Ems's replies, it's not natural, is it? For instance, here Ems said:

emsr2d2 said:
And my answer would be "He's on the second floor". A man can only be in one place at one time. Your question does not need to elicit the information that we're talking about the building on the right because that's where we can see him. That building has only one second floor.
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Speaking about levels (yes, I've read the entire thread this time :)) I understand Alexey's trouble with understanding Frank's point about instantiations because it's foreign for me too. And I find 'on the fifth floor' example very similar to 'at a 0-18-month level'. And even if there are some differences between the examples, as Piscean said, you wouldn't say 'He's at an age of 5', would you? The notion 'age' is as imprecise as 'level', right? If you use in one example 'a' and in a similar one 'the', then there is a contradiction.

But who said a language must be logical? Any language is full of contradictions and there are no explanations for everything in it. I think you, Alexey, собаку съел на артиклях, but can you explain this highly illogical from the contemporary language view expression - собаку съел на чем-либо? :)

Why are there contradicting ways of expression? Isn't it because we all see things a little differently and convey our ideas differently?

I adore this brilliant thread but I'm afraid I'm more confused now than before I read it. :-D But I'm completely fine with that. The brain just needs a little of time to accomodate new information - contradictory or not. I hope so, at least. :)
 
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I always wondered why the expression 'an all-time high' goes with the indefinite article, and Frank's point of view seems to explain it perfectly! There are many peaks like this because everyone or everything has their own all-time high. Is that right?
 
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GeneD said:
I always wondered why the expression 'an old-time high' goes with the indefinite article, and Frank's point of view seems to explain it perfectly! There are many peaks like this because everyone or everything has their own all-time high. Is that right?
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What's an 'old-time high'? Do you mean an 'all-time high'?
 
GeneD said:
I always wondered why the expression 'an [STRIKE]old[/STRIKE] all-time high' goes with the indefinite article ….
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It follows the usual pattern: of all possible highs, this one is an instance of a maximum. There could be a higher one tomorrow, but this is the highest so far.
 
jutfrank said:
What's an 'old-time high'? Do you mean an 'all-time high'?
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Yes, it was 'all-time high', of course. How I could type 'old' is an enigma for me. :)
 
GoesStation said:
It follows the usual pattern: of all possible highs, this one is an instance of a maximum. There could be a higher one tomorrow, but this is the highest so far.
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I always saw it in a different way. Like when we say that someone is 'the best' where we (I hope not only I) think that there is only one best. I thought there is only one best when he/she is in their prime, or, in other words, their 'all-time high'. But Frank's explanation (and yours now, and maybe Charlie's) shows that the issue can be seen the other way round: there are many 'bests' and 'all-time highs'. :)
 
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GeneD said:
But who said a language must be logical? Any language is full of contradictions and there are no explanations for everything in it. I think you, Alexey, собаку съел на артиклях, but can you explain this highly illogical from the contemporary language view expression - собаку съел на чем-либо? :)
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Unlike articles, idioms don't require explanations to use them properly. All you need is to remember their meanings, which won't help you with articles. Maybe some learners develop a gut feeling for article use and do without explicit explanations. Well, I'm not one of them.

jutfrank said:
Using the definite article would be quite inappropriate in these contexts as the building in question has not been specified. You can't refer to 'the' second floor if you don't know which building you're talking about.
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This is definitely true for (2). But in (1) and (3) the building is known:

(1) "Luckily it was mostly beer 6,000 cans of it -- that was shot up Sunday. But the liquor distributor in Baghdad was hit with a full-scale assault:
several cars and a minivan full of masked men with guns and grenades sprayed the building with hundreds of rounds.
Fifty workers and customers huddled for safety on a second floor as it was raked with bullets."

(3) The article's title is 'Chicago’s Homan Square 'black site': surveillance, military-style vehicles and a metal cage.' It starts with
''This building (picture below) looks innocent enough. But those familiar with the secretive interrogation and holding facility describe a shocking display of police abuses"
...
Brian Jacob Church was taken to Homan Square after police picked him up in 2012 on terrorism charges he beat at trial.
He said police first photographed him for a biometrics database, took him down a long cinderblock hallway on a second floor, and handcuffed him to a bench bolted to the floor."
 
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Alexey86 said:
Maybe some learners develop a gut feeling for article use and do without explicit explanations.
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I'm afraid that's the only way to completely master them. You can get most of the way by finding patterns and learning rules; the rest of the journey has to be on foot. :)
 
GeneD said:
But you wouldn't say "He's on a fifth floor", right, Frank? Or would you? From what I gathered reading GS's, Piscean's and Ems's replies, it's not natural, is it?
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Whether it's natural is beside the point. What Alexey86 and I have been discussing here is meaning. And yes, it could easily be natural given an unusual context.

Speaking about levels (yes, I've read the entire thread this time :)) I understand Alexey's trouble with understanding Frank's point about instantiations because it's foreign for me too.
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Or maybe because I didn't explain it very well.

But who said a language must be logical?
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Um, logicians? :-D

Seriously, I prefer to say that language is (psycho)logical. Logically, you can analyse a piece of language to death but it will only get you so far. To properly understand meaning, you must take a cognitive approach to analysis. Meaning comes from an unconscious part of the mind and is formed from unconscious conceptual and spatial structures. I'd say this has been at least partly recognised by the philosophy of language for at least fifty years. I get the impression that Alexey86 (with the greatest respect) is trying to understand things as Gottlob Frege might have, a hundred years ago.

Any language is full of contradictions and there are no explanations for everything in it.
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I couldn't disagree more. Everything has an explanation. Just because you can't see one doesn't mean one doesn't exist.

I adore this brilliant thread but I'm afraid I'm more confused now than before I read it. :-D But I'm completely fine with that. The brain just needs a little of time to accomodate new information - contradictory or not. I hope so, at least. :)
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We're glad you're entertained. ;-)

(P.S. I've never been part of a thread of 100 posts before. Congratulations, Alexey!)

(P.P.S. But I was secretly hoping to write post number #100 myself—damn you, GoesStation for beating me to it!)
 
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Alexey86 said:
This is definitely true for (2). But in (1) and (3) the building is known:

(1) "Luckily it was mostly beer 6,000 cans of it -- that was shot up Sunday. But the liquor distributor in Baghdad was hit with a full-scale assault:
several cars and a minivan full of masked men with guns and grenades sprayed the building with hundreds of rounds.
Fifty workers and customers huddled for safety on a second floor as it was raked with bullets."

(3) The article's title is 'Chicago’s Homan Square 'black site': surveillance, military-style vehicles and a metal cage.' It starts with
''This building (picture below) looks innocent enough. But those familiar with the secretive interrogation and holding facility describe a shocking display of police abuses"
...
Brian Jacob Church was taken to Homan Square after police picked him up in 2012 on terrorism charges he beat at trial.
He said police first photographed him for a biometrics database, took him down a long cinderblock hallway on a second floor, and handcuffed him to a bench bolted to the floor."
Click to expand...

Yes, (1) is odd because, as you say, the building is apparently known. I didn't read the whole passage properly. I can only imagine that this is reference to another building.

(3) is also unclear from the context given. I don't know why the author used an indefinite article there. If there really is only one building involved here, I can imagine that the writer of the article may be dictating what Mr Church had told him—indicating that the second floor in question was unknown to him at the time. Just a guess.
 
GeneD, I think you meant contradictory.
:)
 
jutfrank said:
I couldn't disagree more. Everything has an explanation. Just because you can't see one doesn't mean one doesn't exist.
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Man can't know everything and can't explain everything. I meant by 'there is no explanation' that 'man doesn't have explanations to everything and simply can't have them'.
 
Tarheel said:
GeneD, I think you meant contradictory.
:)
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I don't see what you mean, but probably you are right. It's a hobby of mine as a learner of English to put errors all over the place. :-D
 
GeneD said:
Man can't know everything and can't explain everything. I meant by 'there is no explanation' that 'man doesn't have explanations to everything and simply can't have them'.
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I think article usage is a little bit simpler matter than the origin of life, so we can try to explain it.

jutfrank said:
Excellent examples. You can definitely work with those. I think they illustrate my explanation about instantiations very well.
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jutfrank said:
Each second floor is one instance of a second floor. You cannot interpret them to mean that each building has multiple second floors. Using the definite article would be quite inappropriate in these contexts as the building in question has not been specified. You can't refer to 'the' second floor if you don't know which building you're talking about.
...
Meaning comes from an unconscious part of the mind and is formed from unconscious conceptual and spatial structures.
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Let's put aside the fact the examples aren't excellent, as we have seen. GS thinks (1) is simply an error. But your main point goes pretty much along the lines of my idea of open-ended/closed structures and complements it. I'll repeat it here:

Temperatures and levels are parts of open-ended structures. You can always add one more degree or develop your command of any language. Floors, on the other hand, are typically parts of closed structures:
attachment.php

A building under construction can be considered an open-ended structure, which allows me to tell somebody the news that I've built a second floor. To be clear, open-endness is not an inherent feature of such a building itself. It's all about the speaker's and listener's shared knowledge. If the listener already knew the second floor was under construction, it would become part of a closed information structure.

Based on your comment above, I can add that when we first mention a floor of some unspecified building the information structure is open-ended, which allows us to use 'a/an'.
 
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I think article usage is a little bit simpler matter than the origin of life, so we can try to explain it.
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The article usage in building a second floor example, to me, is fairly easily explained. I don't know whether you checked the thread (I gave this link to you before). I think the examples in it are of the same kind as in your building another floor (second, third, etc) examples. A few ones from there:

Would you like a second/third helping?
I gave it a second look.'
The song was released as a third single from this album.

Here's Natkretep's short explanation (#15):
Yes, it's just the normal rules for definite and indefinite articles. If it helps, a third should work if it can be replaced by another and the third with the other. (Might not work 100%, but this will be indicative, I think.)


 
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Yes. As I said above, I agree with Natkretep. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.
 
GeneD said:
. . . Here's Natkretep's short explanation (#15):
Yes, it's just the normal rules for definite and indefinite articles. If it helps, a third should work if it can be replaced by another and the third with the other. (Might not work 100%, but this will be indicative, I think.)
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Yup. As I said above, I agree with Natkretep. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.
 
GeneD said:
The article usage in building a second floor example, to me, is fairly easy explained. I don't know whether you checked the thread (I gave this link to you before).
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I've read it, thank you. I agree to build a second floor is easily explainable. The idea of open-ended/closed structures is an attempt to find a general explanation for:
1) a second floor, a temperature of, and an intermediate level
2) to build a second floor vs to build the second floor
3) on the second floor vs on a second floor
 
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