III. Comment on the oppositional reduction of the category of article determination

1. A family of ten children will be always called a fine family... but the Morlands... were in general very plain... (Austen). 2. "It's so awful to think nothing in there has ever been broken before. It had to be me." — "Better you than the luck­less Robert." (Du Maurier). 3. Is there a Henry in the world who could be insensible to such a declaration? Henry Tilney, at least, was not. (Austen). 4. When a Forsyte was engaged, married or born, the Forsytes were present. (Galsworthy). 5. We got a big Gladstone for the clothes... (Jerome). 6. Perhaps he was killed... because he knew General The. (Greene). 7. He was... not the Maxim I had first met, not the stranger who sat alone at the table in the restaurant. (Du Maurier). 8. She never told him they (letters) were from a husband (James). 9. He closed his eyes again and remembered, with mild astonishment, a time when he had been in the trouble (Sheckley). 10. It was a white world on which dark trees and tree masses stood under a sky keen with frost (Lawrence). 11. The next day she loved and rejoiced on the day he crossed the floor, he was sun, moon and stars in one (Lawrence). 12. "Has he any relatives in England?" "Two aunts. A Mrs. Everard, who lives at Hampstead, and a Miss Daniels, who lives near Ascot." (Christie) 13. Intending to call Dr. Wilbur's home number. Sybil inserted a dime in the slot to ask for long distance but heard only a metallic nothingness. The telephone was dead (Schreiber). 14. Tonight when he returned to his apartment at the stable he would begin to paint this breathtaking picture of sky and sand and sea (Stone). 15. Where she stopped the sign read: "Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Delia ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie" (O.Henry).