Saturday, June 18, 2016

definite article - This one went to market


You have this children's song "little piggy" and it goes "this little piggy went to market". Why the market is without an article?



Answer



This is an instance of zero article, where the article is dropped in certain circumstances. One of them is for "mass nouns", like "coffee" and "bread" where there is an indefinite quantity of the thing. "Market" is sometimes used this way when referencing either the abstract marketplace, or in this case a large amorphous marketplace like you might have at a village square or whatever.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-marking_in_English#Zero_article


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