Timeline for Singular Vs plural while making a general statement
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| May 6, 2017 at 22:36 | comment | added | Hector von | See the "pictures" example from before, the plural form seems fitting and most common in colloquial speech. Singular "a" as a short form of any would still be colloquial, so I would tend to the plural. On that matter also compare en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specificity_(linguistics) and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definite | |
| May 1, 2017 at 18:39 | comment | added | iamRR | @Hector von : Suppose I'm working on some initiative and someone asks 'What is this initiative all about?' Reply - This initiative tries to help a student realise his/her potential to get success in life. Vs This initiative tries to help students realise their potential to get success in life. What's the difference between the two students Vs 'a student' | |
| Apr 21, 2017 at 5:46 | comment | added | Brock | Suppose I am an event organiser and while conducting one game I announce that 'Whoever wins this game, I will get him a chocolate'. Here I used the word 'a chocolate' so does it mean 'one chocolate' or 'any chocolate' or 'more than one chocolate' or 'any one chocolate' ? | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 17:58 | comment | added | Hector von | i've edited the answer because I exceeded the word limit on the comment. | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 17:58 | history | edited | Hector von | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 17, 2017 at 17:25 | comment | added | Brock | So is it correct to say that 'a crop' is a representative of all crops in general ? One more thing, sentences like 'A dog is a loyal animal' , 'A cow is a useful animal' are general sentences but what about the sentence 'Accord to this scheme a farmer.....' is this a general sentence or not ? | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 17:06 | comment | added | Hector von | No, there is no difference, because if multiple crops fail, "a crop" can be applied to each one separately. In another interpretation, crop is technically used in an abstract and uncountable sense. You would ask "how much crop", to know the yield of the crop in question, right? "How many crops" has a different meaning (types of crop). Anyway, with law, verbal interpretation (textual) stands next to systematic interpretations and others. Context is everything (note the lack of article :)). | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 16:18 | comment | added | Brock | Suppose the govt has launched a scheme named X and I'm making a sentence like this - According to this scheme a farmer will get monetary benefits if 'a crop' fails. Vs According to this scheme a farmer will get monetary benefits if crops fail. Is there any difference in meaning ? Is crop a generic noun here ? | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 16:10 | history | edited | Hector von | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 17, 2017 at 11:47 | comment | added | Hector von | Correction: "chasing" in that case is an adverbial participle. It is not a simple verb anymore and adjectives are not tensed, strictly speaking. It doesn't make a difference for your question, though. Compare e.g.: "What do you do for a living?" "I paint pictures." - the singular would be misleading (whereas the simple present or the progressive present tenses would both be understood, as far as I can tell). | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 11:34 | comment | added | Hector von | "chasing cars" is an idiomatic expression, e.g. having appeared in a prominent song title. While "a car" isn't grammatically wrong, it would probably loose the metaphorical quality and sound to a native speaker as if you were literally a dog chasing a car :) Especially with the continues aspect of the progressive tense, the indefinite plural form helps to express the repetition of the activity. | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 8:59 | comment | added | Brock | Thanks for such a comprehensive answer! One more query - There was a dialogue from the movie Batman in which a person was saying and was making a general statement and the dialogue goes like this, "I am a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it." Here what if i use 'a car' in place of 'cars'. I think both the version should mean 'any car'. Isn't it ? | |
| Apr 17, 2017 at 8:29 | history | answered | Hector von | CC BY-SA 3.0 |