With most nouns, we use the definite article when we are talking about specificity. But why don't we use any article in such cases:
- She has
thecustody of her daughter.- He has
thepossession of a gun.
In the above examples, we are talking about specific instances of those nouns, i.e., "the custody of her daughter', and "the possession of a gun"; then why don't we use any article here?
Note: With both countable and uncountable nouns, we generally use the phrase "the/a x of y", but with nouns like "possession', "custody" we have used "x of y", not "the/a x of y"; why is it so?