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From The Economist's article on the US's economic troubles:

American states and cities typically offer their employees defined-benefit pensions based on years of service and final salary.

The Oxford Dictionary defines "salary" as a count noun. Singular count nouns call for the use of an article.

Is the use of the zero article before "final salary" here explained by the fact that the noun is a part of a list-like structure ("service and final salary") where "service" cannot take an article as a mass noun (hence no article before either)?

I wonder how to explain that in linguistic terms; haven't found a mention of such cases in R. Quirk's grammar so far.

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    Is the use of the zero article before "final salary" here explained by the fact that the noun is a part of a list-like structure ("service and final salary") where "service" cannot take an article as a mass noun (hence no article before either)? Yes. Well-said. In fact, if I were to add a word, I'd say, "...based on their years of service and final salary" – but who am I to argue with The Economist!
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Jul 30, 2013 at 16:39
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    @J.R., a problem with adding the their that you suggest (with referent employees) is that it clashes with the first their (with referent states and cities).
    – James Waldby - jwpat7
    Commented Jul 30, 2013 at 17:14
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    Not all linguists posit the existence of a zero article. See e.g. Berezowski's The Myth of the Zero Article.
    – user230
    Commented Jul 30, 2013 at 18:20
  • @jwpat7: I'd buy that. In other sentences similar to this one, though, used in this context, I'd be likely to use their more often than the, I think.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Jul 30, 2013 at 21:20

2 Answers 2

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I think what's going on here is that the writer is not talking about individual salaries, but rather about the idea of a salary. This shifts it from being a countable noun to being uncountable.

To take another example, "chicken" is a countable noun. You could say, "How many chickens are in the yard?" "Here is a chicken." "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Etc. But you can also say, "I like to eat chicken." You wouldn't say, "I like to eat a chicken", because you are not talking about a specific chicken. Rather you are talking about a general idea of chicken.

Another example: "The thief committed a crime." But, "We have a problem with crime in this neighborhood."

The construction would have been the same if the writer had said, "Pensions are based on height". He wouldn't say "the height", just "height".

If you were talking about one particular employee, you would use an article or an appropriate adjective. So, "Pensions are based on final salary," no article, but, "An employee's pension is based on his final salary", with article. The meaning conveyed to the reader by both sentences is the same, but the grammar is subtly different. (I suppose in the right context, there might be a subtle difference in meaning.)

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  • I definitely think this is the right answer. It deserves more than one upvote, IMO.
    – user230
    Commented Jul 31, 2013 at 0:16
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No, the addition of the '... service and' to final salary does not explain the lack of an article. Indeed the sentence stands without the 'years of final service' clause.

American states and cities typically offer their employees defined-benefit pensions based on final salary.

Part of the reason is that the indefinite article (a) would render a different meaning to the sentence: namely that some arbitrary salary is used as the pension basis and the definite article (the) would suggest there is only one salary and this is used to calculate all pensions.

As J.R points out 'their' is the most accurate word to substitute for the articles, but then you run into problems, including which "their" refers to which group as mentioned by jwpat, but also issues of plurality as their salary is incongruous, but their salaries indicates that more than one salary is used in the calculation of pensions.

So as I see it, the author was faced with the choice of not using an article/pronoun, or explicitly mixing his/her plurals. The author chose the skipped pronoun as the lesser issue.

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  • I'm not sure whether each counts as an article/pronoun, but it seems to me you can quite grammatically insert it after the word "pensions", so it's also reasonable to postulate that this is the word that's being "elided".
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jul 30, 2013 at 20:22

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