Friday, January 6, 2017

word usage - "the movie" vs "an amazing movie"



Did you see the movie about Dian Fossey's work with mountain gorillas? It was an amazing film.



Why is the indefinite article, an, used in the second sentence?


It's the same film they are talking about. Is it because the descriptive adjective in front of the noun?




Answer




Did you see the movie about Dian Fossey's work with mountain gorillas? It was an amazing film.



No, DaBu. Without the descriptive adjective (amazing) we would also place the indefinite article there:



Did you see the movie about Dian Fossey's work with mountain gorillas? It was a film.



It's because in the second sentence we are using the pronoun it to refer to that particular movie, and then we give a description to it (the movie): it belongs to a group of films we would call amazing. There could be hundreds of amazing films, and it is part of that multitude.


Since there are many amazing films in existence, we use the indefinite article.



We could rephrase the sentences thus, putting "the film" instead of "it":



Did you see the movie about Dian Fossey's work with mountain gorillas? The film was an amazing film.



See?


But we can make the second sentence use the with amazing film if we make "the amazing film" the unique referent to "the movie":



Did you see the movie about Dian Fossey's work with mountain gorillas? The amazing film is a 3-hour long cinematic feast.



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