A prolific artist the Canadian composer Barbara Pentland wrote four symphonies, three concertos, and an opera, among other works.
PS: Discover these free English lessons: Free tips: Useful English Idioms — Ask — Silent Letters — The Possessive Case
- EveONovember 2015
АДКАЗАЦЬ
EveONovember 2015 Well, I do understand the difference between definite and indefinite article. However, here both words - artist and composer refer to one person - Barbara Pentland. So she is the artist and she is the composer. The thing I don`t understand is why we use different articles for words that both describe one person. |
AussieInBgApril 2021 ”A prolific artist the Canadian composer Barbara Pentland wrote four symphonies, three concertos, and an opera, among other works.” is actually a very formal construction. I think this is the source of difficulty in understanding. To answer the question properly (and more clearly , we must transform the sentence into something ”less formal”: ”The Canadian composer Barbara Pentland who is a prolific artist wrote four symphonies, three concertos, and an opera, among other works.” It’s clear that ”Canadian composer Barbara Pentland” uses a definite article - we immediately define ”composer” - ”Barbara Pentland”. The clause ”who is a prolific artist” describes ”Barbara Pentland”. Here, we introduce the idea of ”prolific artist” to describe ”Barbara Pentland” - ”Barbara Pentland” = one (of more than one) prolific artists . Therefore, it has an indefinite article ”a”. |
melsal1214November 2015 "A" is indefinite because there are more than just one prolific artist. "the" is definite because there is just one Barbara Pentland. Another example: The cat is asleep. (One specific cat) A cat likes milk. (basically means that cats in general like milk, not just one specific one) |
EveONovember 2015 But articles belong to the words that refer to her, not to her name