Here's a sentence from a textbook:
You can use the word partner to describe either a husband or wife or the person that someone lives with.
Why is there no article before the word 'wife'? Is it correct English grammar?
asked Sep 2 '16 at 19:57
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3Welcome to ELL and thanks you for your question. The indefinite article a here is the determiner for both husband and wife. Please take a few minutes to review our tour and help center pages. Whenever possible, you should include a link to the book you are quoting. – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Sep 2 '16 at 20:01
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Thank you. It's this book: link Do I understand correctly that husband or wife here is a noun phrase and or in this noun phrase is not a part of either-or structure? – Andrew Furletov Sep 2 '16 at 20:25
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Excellent! Now use the edit link to add the source to your question. This will be good practice for the next time you ask a question here. – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Sep 2 '16 at 20:26
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Done! Link added. – Andrew Furletov Sep 2 '16 at 20:32
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2I wasn't clear. We don't need a link to a place where we can buy the book; we need a link to the actual text quoted in the question, if it's available. For instance: issuu.com/macmillaneducation/docs/gateway_b1_sb_u1 – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Sep 2 '16 at 20:35
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Show 3 more comments
You can use the word partner to describe either a husband or wife or the person that someone lives with.
This is known as parallel structure. The first paragraph at this first site explains it best. In a parallel construction repeat an article (a, an, the), a preposition, or pronoun whenever necessary to make the meaning clear. The meaning of "a husband or (a) wife" is clearly understood.
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/623/01/
At this next site, scroll down to all the NOTES about what you can omit in a parallel construction
http://english.tutorvista.com/grammar/parallel-structure.html
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-parallelism.html
