how nice if we can just hang on a tree to sleep at night and feel refreshed next day morning! In this way, we can travel anywhere without money for a hotel. Then we don't need to be mired at hometown.

@snailboat I like the term bare NP. It identifies the thing for what it is, rather than by what isn't there. Well, sort of. There's still the issue with bare, which isn't all that much different from null and zero. But at least it focuses on the noun phrase rather than the missing article.

@userr2684291 In Peter Master's hierarchy of determiners, the zero article is less definite than the indefinite article. That's in the first block quote from my answer linked above.

@userr2684291 Determiners aren't simply interchangeable. "He called him the/a/(null) dog" has different meanings depending on which determiner is used. That doesn't invalidate the assertion that the determiners can be ranked in a hierarchy. Just like shining blue and green lights on things and observing that they look different doesn't invalidate the assertion that the colours can be compared/ranked by their EM frequency. But I might have misunderstood your intent. If so, would you mind rephrasing?

@userr2684291 It's not paraphrasing. The variants show the effect of using different determiners, keeping the noun "lunch" the same.

hunger trouble

to work, you have to eat first.

that's why one can only give only after being given first.

@Lawrence Yes, and I'd guess it's because the authors of the book are trying to offer the most parsimonious analysis. Bare NPs merely describes NPs, a concept used throughout the book. However, introducing concepts such as Zero Article or Null Article seems like adding extra terminology for no good reason.

@Lawrence Oh I know, but you can't prepend a(n) to an uncountable noun because then you're changing the meaning of the noun; you're not just determining it. That's why it makes no sense to compare the "zero article" with the indefinite article (it does, as some kind of broader description, in a factoid kinda way) as much as it does with the definite article, for example.

@userr2684291 They don't add it - it's different terminology. Saying that it's added for no good reason is like saying that motorcycles work well with 2 wheels, so 4 wheels for a vehicle doesn't make sense. The terms are used in different contexts. I like the bare NP phrasing, but zero/null article works well within Peter Master's work in a way that the term bare NP doesn't.

@userr2684291 We seem to have gone full circle. I was under the impression that you were looking for a comparison. Quoting you:

@Lawrence Thanks for trying to help. I guess I wasn't really asking about a vs. "zero article" but countable vs. uncountable. I've found that people provide better answers when given actual examples, however, because then you can hear/read the word/phrase and maybe think of sentences in which they'd be used in that fashion. (:

@userr2684291 You're welcome. Both phrases work (with or without "a"), but each has its own 'feel'. Anyway, the following may be of interest to you:

Interesting read.

I like some of the answers there.

@snailboat ell.stackexchange.com/a/173929/3395 ...in many cases it's only a manner of taking a slightly different path to express a same meaning. What do you think; is this a mistake or could it be justified somehow? Perhaps same here is more akin to similar?

"In attributive function, same is restricted to definite NPs", and this looks like attributive function to me.

I remembered a discussion about this, so I searched the chat for definite adjective and found exactly that description with same and wrong. When is a wrong okay exactly – when there are multiple wrong turns you can take? Is this related to the open the window example? You don't care which window, and you don't care which wrong turn (but you might start caring for some reason).

"A wrong" is OK when wrong is a noun - wrong as a noun means "event where an injustice was suffered."

> Researchers have found a surprising way to help boost the skills of children with language impairment: Pay their parents to read to them.

medicalxpress.com/news/…

The wonders of modern science

@CowperKettle Fifty measly cents, even.