English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Recently I've seen several examples of phrases like 'awarded for first place' on Wikipedia etc. (E.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ribbon)
I think I understand when definite or indefinite articles are used with ordinal numbers, but what does a zero article mean before ordinals? Does it imply that the 'first place' is treated as a mass noun here?.. Is it even correct/grammatical?
Yes, it's quite correct. Numbers, not just ordinals, often remove the need for an article. For example, you could say "I have an apple", or "I have one apple". You could say "Astralbee is the best at answering English questions" or "is number one for answering English questions".
There are plenty of other contexts where you might use an article with an ordinal, for example, "it was the first place I visited", but in a race the zero article is idiomatic. A numbered position in a race is something specific, so there isn't a need for a definite article to add specificity.
