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I ran into this sentence in a Fortune article:

The life sciences arm of Google umbrella company Alphabet is bugging out.

Is the definite article missing in this sentence? Should it be written as:

The life sciences arm of the Google umbrella company Alphabet is bugging out.

or

The life sciences arm of Google's umbrella company Alphabet is bugging out.

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    In my opinion, no, the article is not missing. Yes, company is a countable, singular noun, so it needs a determiner, but "Google umbrella company" functions as that determiner.
    – stangdon
    Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 20:10
  • @stangdon I think you meant "Google umbrella" is the determiner preceding the noun "company."
    – Eddie Kal
    Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 1:22
  • whoops, you're right.
    – stangdon
    Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 15:21
  • All your examples need commas. The life sciences arm of Google umbrella company, Alphabet, is… The life sciences arm of the Google umbrella company, Alphabet, is… The life sciences arm of Google's umbrella company, Alphabet, is… Sorry, but even if it didn’t need those commas, Google umbrella-company Alphabet would be analogous at best to to US-Senator Joe Shmoe, if not to US Senator Joe-Shmoe.
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 19:49

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umbrella company specifies a role (and role nouns do not have an article). You could hyphenate it umbrella-company.

Google is a noun modifying the role noun "adjectivally" (noun-adjunct, premodifier, attributive noun).

Google umbrella-company Alphabet is analogous to US Senator Joe Shmoe.

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