# <A><The> restaurant I went to last night



## kansi

I went to a restaurant last night and the food there was really good.Now I want to recommend it to a friend of mine.
Me: *A* restaurant I went to last night was really good. You should also go there sometime.
friend A :Oh where was that?
Even though I wrote "a" restaurant because it's true that I went to just one restaurant but friend A has no idea about the restaurant ",introducing an item for the first time to that friend, I feel like I have seen a lot more such a sentence like the sentence:*The* restaurant I went to last night was really good.

If it's true, what's happening here?


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> I went to a restaurant last night and the food there was really good.Now I want to recommend it to a friend of mine.
> Me: *A* restaurant I went to last night was really good. You should also go there sometime.
> friend A :Oh where was that?
> Even though I wrote "a" restaurant because it's true that I went to just one restaurant but friend A has no idea about the restaurant ",introducing an item for the first time to that friend, I feel like I have seen a lot more such a sentence like the sentence:*The* restaurant I went to last night was really good.
> 
> If it's true, what's happening here?


The first time it is mentioned it is "a restaurant".  You will therefore also see sentences that talk about "a restaurant".
You have seen many sentences where the speaker says "The restaurant ...".  That is becuase the conversation before that sentence has already introduced the restaurant.  From then on, all those sentences refer to it as the restaurant. 
The first time it is mentioned it is "a restaurant". But there is only one use of "a restaurant" in each conversation, so there will be more that use "the restaurant"


----------



## tunaafi

It's also natural to say "The restaurant I went to last night was good". The words I have underlined tell you which specific restaurant you are talking about.


----------



## JulianStuart

tunaafi said:


> It's also natural to say "The restaurant I went to last night was good". The words I have underlined tell you which specific restaurant you are talking about.


Indeed - if the first mention of something simultaneously identifies it, we can use "the" The concepts of "context" and "new information" are critical - just as they are in Japanese (This article is quite helpful on the — to non-Japanese speakers — complicated issue of particles, and how the choice relies on the context/new information).


----------



## kentix

You can also introduce the concept in other ways without mentioning the same word.

_We went out to eat last night. *The* restaurant was really good._

A place you go out to eat at is called a restaurant. So when you say "We went out to eat last night." what people automatically understand is "We went out to eat last night at *a* restaurant." But people know that place is called a restaurant so you don't have to waste your breath saying the entire sentence. They know what you mean. Now the concept of* a* restaurant has been introduced indirectly.

So when you say:
*The*_ restaurant was really good._

They understand that you are referring to the restaurant mentioned indirectly in the first sentence. You have to say "*the* restaurant" because you can't introduce it twice.

This would be wrong:

_We went out to eat last night (at *a* restaurant). *A* restaurant was really good._


----------



## kentix

kansi said:


> Even though I wrote "a" restaurant because it's true that I went to just one restaurant


You are still misunderstanding the use of "a" to mean "one". It's not about the number, it's about the type.

"I went to a restaurant" does not emphasize you went to *one* restaurant. People don't normally go to more than one restaurant for one meal. It emphasizes you went to a* restaurant and not a bowling alley and not a carnival and not a movie theater and not a friend's house and not a grocery store and not an office building and not a political rally and not...

* a building of the type called a restaurant that serves food to the public


----------



## kansi

JulianStuart said:


> If the first mention of something simultaneously identifies it, we can use "the"


I see..although this sentence is at the first mension, (I guess) "last night" defines a restaurant clearly because people usually assume people go to eat supper/dinner/whatever at one restaurant, It's normal to start the sentence with "the" restaurant?

Before any restaurants are mentioned, It's natural to start a sentence with "*A* restaurant I went to last night...".
But in this case it's also natural to start a sentence with "*The* restaurant I went to last night...". because (I guess) "last night" identified.
So are both fine and do people say the indefinite version at the first mention and people do the definite version at the first mention?


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> I see..although this sentence is at the first mension, (I guess) "last night" defines a restaurant clearly because people usually assume people go to eat supper/dinner/whatever at one restaurant, It's normal to start the {*NEXT} *sentence with "the" restaurant?


 Yes - the "previous mention" does not have to use the word, only provide suitable context to allow subsequent information to be specific.



kansi said:


> So are both fine and do people say the indefinite version at the first mention and *people do the definite version at the first mention*?


You are getting closer to understanding.  However, you need to understand what constitutes previous mention: it is not necessarily the word "restaurant". The bold text on your statement is true *only* if a) the context has made it clear or b) it is specified simultaneously.  If someone says "We went out to dinner last night" - that context is the first "mention" because the *next* new information describes the place as "the restaurant".
①We went out to dinner last night.  The restaurant has great food.(Context makes it clear and the second sentence uses the to give new information specifically about the place where we ate.)
②The restaurant we ate at last night serves great food. (Simultaneous identification and new information)
③The other day we went to a restaurant in Tokyo.  The restaurant has a good reputation. The reputation is well-deserved. (First sentence is "first use" of the word restaurant (or reputation) = first mention.  So the second sentence can tell us new information about the specified restaurant (or reputation.)


----------



## kansi

JulianStuart said:


> ②The restaurant we ate at last night serves great food. (Simultaneous identification and new information)


I see..that "we ate at last night" is simultaneos identification. By the way If it is "we ate last year", we wouldn't use the definite article but the indefinite article,right? because almost any person went to maltiple restaurants last year, which doesn't identify any restaurant.


----------



## tunaafi

It depends. If, like my parents, you eat out very rarely indeed, 'the restaurant we ate at last year' might be appropriate. It might also be appropriate if tyou were discussing a restaurant you last went to on a special (annual) occasion, for example, a wedding anniversary. last visit.

As always, *context *is important,


----------



## kansi

tunaafi said:


> If, like my parents, you eat out very rarely indeed, 'the restaurant we ate at last year' might be appropriate.


For those who know your parents eat out very rarely, the definite version fits but for those who don't know, doesn't the the definite version fit?


----------



## tunaafi

Kansi, when we speak or write, we generally know who we are directing our words at. If the situation does not justify a definite article, then we use an indefinite article, which, as I have mentioned before, is the default article for singular countable nouns.


----------



## kansi

tunaafi said:


> when we speak or write, we generally know who we are directing our words at.


yup I mean, if your parents speak to those who knew they rarely eat out, your parents would say the definite article version. If your parents speak to those who don't know, your parents would say the indefinite article version.

Isn't this what you mean by "*If, like my parents, you eat out very rarely indeed, 'the restaurant we ate at last year' might be appropriate.*" in #10?


----------



## tunaafi

Yes and no. Yes - if they were going to use that sentence, to people who don't know, they would probably use the indefinite article.
No - they probably would not those use those words.  _A restaurant we at at last year was really good _is not a particularly natural utterance. However, a discussion of why is beyond the scope of this thread. It is grammatically correct,


----------



## kansi

tunaafi said:


> _A restaurant we at at last year was really good _is not a particularly natural utterance.


I was correct about the use of the indefinite article in the sentence.However, first of all, the sentence is weird: English speakers would use different sentences to mean the same meaning of the sentence?


----------



## tunaafi

I didn't say the sentence ws weird. I simply said it was not very natural. Many native speakers of BrE would convey the message in different words.


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> I see..that "we ate at last night" is simultaneos identification. By the way If it is "we ate last year", we wouldn't use the definite article but the indefinite article,right? *because** Because *almost any person went to maltiple *multiple* restaurants last year, which doesn't identify any restaurant.


Correct - if yiu change the CONTEXT/prior information,  you often need to change the words.*
1) "We ate at a Japanese restaurant last year." (This is because there are many Japanese restaurants in the world and we have not yet identified it).  "My mother didn't like any of the food, even though the restaurant has a good reputaton." (We use the because we are referring to the restaurant we just mentioned).
2) "We went to a small village in rural Montana last week  We ate at the Japanese restaurant."  In this exmple, we learn from the use of the word "the" that there is only one Japanese retaurant in that village.
(* Just like in Japanese!!! I am guessing you find this concept as difficult to understand as English speakers find the "explanations" of when to use _wa_ and when to use _ga_ in Japanese.)


----------



## kansi

JulianStuart said:


> 2) "We went to a small village in rural Montana last week We ate at the Japanese restaurant." In this exmple, we learn from the use of the word "the" that there is only one Japanese retaurant in that village.


I don't know if this use of the is correct..Because others told me it's not the definite article that tells if something is only one but the context which has been talked before the + noun that allows us use the definite article.The context is good then we are allow us to use the definite article. Or that context of a small village in montana is a good reason enough to use the definite article?


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> I don't know if this use of the is correct..Because others told me it's not the definite article that tells if something is only one but the context which has been talked before the + noun that allows us use the definite article.The context is good then we are allow us to use the definite article. Or that context of a small village in montana is a good reason enough to use the definite article?


It is correct. There are two situations where the is used and I illustrated them both above
To summarize: 
1) The restaurant has been previously mentioned.
OR
2) The restaurant has NOT been previously mentioned BUT the speaker is using "the" to TELL the listener (new information) that _there is only one_.


----------



## kansi

JulianStuart said:


> Correct - if yiu change the CONTEXT/prior information,  you often need to change the words.*
> 1) "We ate at a Japanese restaurant last year." (This is because there are many Japanese restaurants in the world and we have not yet identified it).  "My mother didn't like any of the food, even though the restaurant has a good reputaton." (We use the because we are referring to the restaurant we just mentioned).
> 2) "We went to a small village in rural Montana last week  We ate at the Japanese restaurant."  In this exmple, we learn from the use of the word "the" that there is only one Japanese retaurant in that village.
> (* Just like in Japanese!!! I am guessing you find this concept as difficult to understand as English speakers find the "explanations" of when to use _wa_ and when to use _ga_ in Japanese.)


I know that is hard..Ga is like when you want to more emphasize on the subject: we can imply into the sentence the message that not others but I do something.


----------



## kansi

JulianStuart said:


> It is correct. There are two situations where the is used and I illustrated them both above
> To summarize:
> 1) The restaurant has been previously mentioned.
> OR
> 2) The restaurant has NOT been previously mentioned BUT the speaker is using "the" to TELL the listener (new information) that _there is only one_.


Is this true?I am not sure about it..others told me the totally opposite thing.
Are you saying we can put the definite article before some noun to make it mean that it's only one??
ex) when that big typhoon hit here, stores were really in short of things. I went to a convinience store and I found just the bread.(should be just a bread)


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> Is this true?I am not sure about it..others told me the total opposite thing.
> Are you saying we can put the definite article before some noun to make it mean that it's only one??


Absolutely!
I went to the restaurant in Podunc, = There is only one restaurant there.
I went to a restaurant in Podunc. = There is more than one there.


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> I know that is hard..Ga is like when you want to more emphasize on the subject: we can imply into the sentence the message that not others but I do something.


I have read may attempts to explain when they are used but it remains elusive (the one I linked to in post #4 is the best so far)


----------



## kansi

JulianStuart said:


> Absolutely!
> I went to the restaurant in Podunc, = There is only one restaurant there.
> I went to a restaurant in Podunc. = There is more than one there.


Do you think you are saying opposite of others here about this?


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> Do you think you are saying opposite of others here about this?


Absolutely not.  Please indicate posts where they say the opposite.
Edit: In "I went to a restaurant in Podunc" _with no other context_, might mean either "In Podunc I went to a restaurant" even if there is only one restaurant because the intended meaning  (or "emphasis" if that's how you see the wa/ga issue!) is that "I went out to eat" and the place (or how many restaurants there are) is not important.


----------



## Myridon

kansi said:


> ex) when that big typhoon hit here, stores were really in short of things. I went to a convenience store and I found just the bread.(should be just a bread)


That would be wrong.  You found the  (uncountable) bread that the convenience store is expected to have or you found (uncountable) bread.  You did not find a bread.  Bread is generally uncountable. When used countably, it would mean "a type of bread."  Pumpernickel is a bread.


----------



## tunaafi

Julian is 100% correct.


----------



## kansi

the only one / one
see #31. I thought that was different from what you said here.

There are more threads and it will take a little while to find them.


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> the only one / one
> see #31. I thought that was different from what you said here.
> 
> There are more threads and it will take a little while to find them.


That post only deals with "only" and one of many etc.  It does not say the opposite of what I said above.


----------



## kentix

Also, you have to understand you can't teach everything about a topic at once. You teach the simplest use first. It's a bad idea to teach a more complicated use if the person doesn't understand the simplest use.

The simple case is "a" for new information/first mention, "the" for second, third, fourth...mention. 

I found a coin.
The coin was gold.
The coin was old.
The coin was from Roman times.
The coin was valuable.
I sold the coin for a lot of money.

There are other ways you can use "a" and "the" that are more complicated. The way outlined above is just one way, the main way and the simplest way - but not the only way.

Julian is telling you about some of the more complicated ways to use "the".


kansi said:


> Do you think you are saying opposite of others here about this?


It's not "the opposite of". It's "in addition to" the simplest way.


----------



## kansi

JulianStuart said:


> Absolutely not.  Please indicate posts where they say the opposite.
> Edit: In "I went to a restaurant in Podunc" _with no other context_, might mean either "In Podunc I went to a restaurant" even if there is only one restaurant because the intended meaning  (or "emphasis" if that's how you see the wa/ga issue!) is that "I went out to eat" and the place (or how many restaurants there are) is not important.



retaliation for <a> missile strike that [article]

#15
I was told,
that it was one strike and that killed the general.

#33
I said,
So, even though one strike killed the general, the writer assumed the readers wouldn't know about the story, so it's "a" that is used before U.S. drone missile.

#34
I was told:
Again this is a news article so the writers have to make judgements on what their readers already know, might not know, and couldn't know. They can't explain every last detail of every last thing in every last article.

#38
I was told:
If something is not known to the reader/listener you introduce it with "a/an". If the thing is already known to the reader/listener then you can should refer to it as "the".



So I understand even though something is only one, if people assume that readers or listeners don't know if it's only one or not, people use the indefinite article.
In fact, it was a single strike that killed the general but the writer assumed that the readers wouldn't know about the strike, so it's a strike.

＊But it seems like I also interpret the fact something is one to that something is only one.
＊I also remember another thread about similar things.It'll take a bit more.


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> retaliation for <a> missile strike that [article]
> 
> #15
> I was told,
> that it was one strike and that killed the general.
> Not relevant.  It was a strike that had not been mentioned before.
> 
> #33
> I said,
> So, even though one strike killed the general, the writer assumed the readers wouldn't know about the story, so it's "a" that is used before U.S. drone missile.
> A is used because of the "first mention" (the reader doesn't know yet)
> 
> #34
> I was told:
> Again this is a news article so the writers have to make judgements on what their readers already know, might not know, and couldn't know. They can't explain every last detail of every last thing in every last article.
> No context
> 
> #38
> I was told:
> If something is not known to the reader/listener you introduce it with "a/an". If the thing is already known to the reader/listener then you can should refer to it as "the".
> This is a good example of the "First mention" principle
> 
> 
> 
> So I understand even though something is *only one*, if people assume that readers or listeners don't know if it's only one or not, people use the indefinite article.
> In fact, it was a single strike that killed the general but the writer *assumed that the readers wouldn't know about the strike, so it's a strike. Yes, it was the first mention.  They use the indefinite without thinking about "are there others ,and if so how many, that are important to this communication?"*
> 
> *＊But it seems like I also interpret the fact something is one to that something is only one.*


Please read the quoted text for my comments in colour.
You have been told many times that thinking about "does it mean one?" is not fruitful.  WE MUST USE AN ARTICLE, so we must use a or the.  This does not convey information about other possible , e.g., restaurants. I*f we need to convey more specific quantitative information about one, two, three etc, we use those words.*
None of the examples you have cited  are saying "the opposite" of what I said.  (As a separate issue, I have never focused on the issue of "a = one = only one?")


----------



## kentix

You have to use logic as well as grammar.

Whatever strike that kills him is going to be the *one* that kills him.

If he's dead, no second strike can kill him because he's already dead.

If the first strike didn't kill him and a second strike does, then it's still one strike that killed him - the second one. The first one didn't kill him so we can't say he was killed by two strikes if only one strike caused his death. So, again, the issue of "a" is not about the number "one". It's about the type of attack that killed him. That's new information to the reader.

He was killed in a missile attack (maybe it was one missile, maybe it was 1000, it doesn't matter). He was not killed by anything else. He wasn't killed by *a* ground assault, he wasn't killed with* a* laser gun, he wasn't killed by *an* attack dog, he wasn't killed by *a* killer alligator, he wasn't killed by *a* nuclear bomb. He was killed by [new information] "*a missile attack*".

Now everyone knows about the missile attack, so:

*The missile attack* that killed him was carried out by the United States.


kansi said:


> #15
> I was told,
> that it was one strike and that killed the general.


#15 is a post of yours

Added:
I just realized you posted this on the wrong thread. This is your thread about going to a restaurant.


----------



## kentix

Think about another, hypothetical, scenario (not the real one):

Maybe there were three attacks one hour apart. At the end, he was dead. So in that case we know that one of the attacks killed him but we don't know which one. It doesn't matter. It's a news story introducing new information to the readers so it still uses "a".

*A*_ series of drone missile strikes killed a prominent Iranian general. _(Which particular strike killed him is irrelevant.)

Now everyone knows about the strikes.

_*The strikes* were carried out by the United States._


----------



## kansi

Myridon said:


> That would be wrong.  You found the  (uncountable) bread that the convenience store is expected to have or you found (uncountable) bread.  You did not find a bread.  Bread is generally uncountable. When used countably, it would mean "a type of bread."  Pumpernickel is a bread.


Sorry.
Then what if it were "the bottle of water"?
ex) when that big typhoon hit here, stores were really in short of things. I went to a convinience store and I found just the bottle of water.

Is this this situation below?

2) The restaurant has NOT been previously mentioned BUT the speaker is using "the" to TELL the listener (new information) that _there is only one_.


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> I went to a convinience store and I found *just* the bottle of water.
> 
> Is this this situation below?


You should put the words of other members in quotes so we can keep track of who has said what, like this.


JulianStuart said:


> 2) The restaurant has NOT been previously mentioned BUT the speaker is using "the" to TELL the listener (new information) that _there is only one_.



[/QUOTE]You have added "just" that changes the intended meaning  Let's discuss the sentence without "just"


"I went to a conv*e*nience store and I found the bottle of water."
It is the same structure and it does tells us new information (so that's the reason to use "the") *BUT *this context is not normally *logical* -- that there was only one bottle of water there. It suggests a "normal situation" that convenience stores only ever have one bottle  We know that's not true, while it is quite common for small villages to have only one restaurant. In English we would say, if that's what we meant, "the *last* bottle of water." or "the *only* bottle that was left."

Alternatively, you could have said "I found just one bottle".


----------



## kansi

JulianStuart said:


> Alternatively, you could have said "I found just one bottle"


Could I also have just said "I found just a bottle"?

but the sentences emphasize different things.
"the only bottle" emphasized that I found not two bottles, not three bottles, not four bottles..but just only one bottle.
"a bottle one" emphasized that I found a bottle in the way that it tells I found not a bag of snack, some vegetable nor some meat...but a bottle of water.


----------



## kentix

I think in the restaurant example it would be natural to emphasize the word "the" when saying the sentence.

_We ate at *the* Japanese restaurant (there)._

That informs your listener that you are putting special emphasis on "the" to indicate it is the _only_ example of that kind of restaurant in that town (we don't have villages, generally  ).


----------



## JulianStuart

kentix said:


> This is a context where the number is critical,


  The actual number is an important piece of information.


----------



## kentix

JulianStuart said:


> The actual number is an important piece of information.


Unfortunately, I seem to have somehow erased the post you quoted.

Basically I said in this context, unlike in some other earlier ones, the numbers are very important and should be emphasized and referred to with numbers.

_I found only a single bottle of water._

It's not normal for a store to have only one  bottle of water. So emphasizing the number makes sense. And I'm using "a" to introduce new information and single to represent the number "one".


----------



## JulianStuart

kentix said:


> Unfortunately, I seem to have somehow erased the post you quoted.


 The "Delete" button is quite close to the "Edit" button on one's own posts but I learnt the hard way, too


----------



## kentix

I think I actually edited it not realizing it was the original. Sometimes a previous message gets auto-quoted in the new message box (from a stray click) and I think that's what I thought happened. So I erased it. But I guess it was in edit mode and it was the original, not a copy. I think when you delete you can at least see the old message.


----------



## kansi

JulianStuart said:


> It suggests a "normal situation" that convenience stores only ever have one bottle


That sentence:_When that big typhoon hit here, stores were really in short of things. I went to a convinience store and I found just the bottle of water._
sounds like telling its situation as a normal situation??


----------



## kentix

"just the bottle of water" suggests that it was normal to have one bottle water. You can say whatever you want before that, but "the" bottle of water suggests that one bottle is the only bottle normally expected. So the two parts don't match. One part is talking about a shortage, and the other part is saying having just one item is normal. You have not introduced the existence of one bottle or supplied a context where one bottle would be normal. Nothing is "normal" during a hurricane.

Compare that to the town with one Japanese restaurant. You can imagine that is a normal situation. A small town in the middle of America is not going to have many Japanese restaurants. It's a bit amazing that it even has one. So saying "We ate at *the* Japanese restaurant in town" makes sense. It fits expectations of what is likely. If you want, you can emphasize that more clearly.

_We ate at the one and only Japanese restaurant in town._


----------



## kansi

kentix said:


> He was killed in a missile attack (maybe it was one missile, maybe it was 1000, it doesn't matter). He was not killed by anything else. He wasn't killed by *a* ground assault, he wasn't killed with* a* laser gun, he wasn't killed by *an* attack dog, he wasn't killed by *a* killer alligator, he wasn't killed by *a* nuclear bomb. He was killed by [new information] "*a missile attack*".


This is what the writer wants the sentence to mean because it's a piece of new information. That's why the writer use the indefinite article.

This means..could we sometimes say both way with the definite article and with indefinite article?

quoting JulianStuart's sentence,
Do we have two ways to say about it?

"We went to a small village in rural Montana last week We ate at the Japanese restaurant."
→it means there is the only one Japanese restaurant there and we ate there.

"We went to a small village in rural Montana last week We ate at *a* Japanese restaurant."
→this means that we didn't eat at a hotel, a french restaurant nor a local-cusine restaurant but at a Japanese restaurant.


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> This means..could we sometimes say both way with the definite article and with indefinite article?


YES  They have different information content.
In the case with "a", we CANNOT TELL whether there is _another_ Japanese restaurant in the village.  There may or there may not be, but with no other information provided beforehand, _we don't know, _because we are not provided with that information from the sentence.  It does _not_ mean "the only one".

The use "the" in the second sentence TELLS US there is only one Japanese restaurant.


----------



## kentix

But if there is more than one, we can't say "the". We either have to say "We ate at *a* Japanese restaurant" or we have to give numbers:

_We ate at *one of the two* Japanese restaurants in town._


----------



## kansi

kentix said:


> We ate at *one of the two* Japanese restaurants in town.


This should be said if I should or want to tell them how many of them are in town.
Otherwise, If I want to tell the existensce of a restaurant whose type is Japanese, I would go with "a Japanese restaurant".


----------



## kentix

Yes.


----------



## kansi

kentix said:


> Yes.


Can I ask about that strike that killed the general at this timing again?
I understand and agree with that we should use the indefinite article with that sentence.

However I also thought it's similar to the example of "the Japanese restaurant in a rural town". The
situation where there is the only one Japanese restaurant in a rural village is  normal. When it comes to the strike example, the situation that such a strike at a single time kills the general could be considerd normal.
So I thought it's also fine that even thought it was the first mention, it's "the strike" but not on news, outside of news.

Or even outside of news, should it be odd because it sounds like that it suddenly emphasized that it was the single strlke that killed them: it was not two strikes, not three strikes, not four stiikes?it's like emphasizing it at
an odd timing?


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> Or even outside of news, should it be odd because it sounds like that it suddenly emphasized that it was the single strlke that killed them: it was not two strikes, not three strikes, not four stiikes?it's like emphasizing it at
> an odd timing?


There are other strikes happening in the conflict and this is the "first mention".  If the first time the strike is mentiond the writer used "the", without simultaneously identifying it, the reader would be confused, and woud think there was only ever one strike.
As you already said


kansi said:


> In fact, it was a single strike that killed the general but the writer assumed that the readers wouldn't know about the strike, so it's *a* strike.


One thing that still seems to confuse you - whenever _it is important for the speaker to communicate the number of items_, they will use the number - and it if it is only one, they will use the word "one".  If they use "a", the number is not an important part of the communication.  (It's a bit like the decision porcess in Japanese for plurals: you cannot tell whether a word means one or more of {noun} but _if it is important for the communication and the context does not make it clear_, a separate pluralizing suffix -tachi is required).


----------



## kansi

JulianStuart said:


> without simultaneously identifying it,


is this not such a case?
I thought the situation the only one strike ( to be exact, the only one U.S drone strike)  kills a general was considerd normal as you told me the situation there is the only one Japanese restaurant in a rural village is considerd normal, which is simultaneously identification.


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> is this not such a case?
> I thought the situation the only one strike ( to be exact, the only one U.S drone strike)  kills a general was considerd normal as you told me the situation there is the only one Japanese restaurant in a rural village, which is simultaneously identification.


There have been multiple American drone strikes and this is one of them. ( If you are going to quote previous situations, each of which has its own contexts and previous information, please quote the whole sentence each time. )


----------



## kansi

JulianStuart said:


> There have been multiple American drone strikes and this is one of them.


I couldn't find this information. Is it in the article?

And the part that clause: *that killed Qassem Soleimani *modifes *a U.S. drone missile strike *is confusing*.
This that-clause:that killed Qassem Soleimani *isn't simultaneously identification?
And there might have been some U.S. drone missile strikes, but a U.S missile strike *that could kill Qassem Soleimani (*or ,in other words*, with the feature of having killed Qassem Soleimani?) *is only one, which seems just normal. This general ,as other human beings, can die only at one time. The other U.S. missile strikes are the U.S. missile strikes that didn't kill/ failed to kill Qassem Soleimani.
There might have been multiple American drone strikes that were going to kill him but there weren't multiple American drone strikes that acctually killed him.


----------



## JulianStuart

kansi said:


> I couldn't find this information. Is it in the article?


It is part of the context and logic.  If the concept of an American drone strike was completely new to the concept of the conflict, it would have been explained in detail.

(As for the rest of your post, I will not respond.  You have not quoted the original sentence or context and I am not going back to all the previous parts of the discusssion to find it I think it's even in a different thread  )

Context, logic and intended meaning all play a role as well as the general guidance first given in post #2.  Compare the two bold sentences below. They differ in the choice of the or a because of the context and intended meaning.

These two sentences are in the context of the strike that killed the general (he *is* the topic) and the information is specific to that situation,
First mention: He was killed by a strike from a drone.
Second and subsequent mention (it is now specific): *Some civilians were killed in the strike that killed the general*.

These two are not about the general (he is *not* the topic)
There are risks when using a drone for assassinations.
*Some civilians were recently killed in a strike that *(incidentally)* killed a general*.


----------



## kentix

No, the drone strike situation is different because there is no normal amount of times for a strike to kill a top-ranked Iranian general and no normal amount of attempts to kill a top-ranked Iranian general. People can't infer anything in that situation about what's normal. It's unique. That's why it's on the news. That's why the listeners need to be introduced to it.

We all have experience with there being only one restaurant of a specific type in the place we live. That's a normal everyday experience we can relate to. None of us know what's "normal" about killing a foreign general. We have to be told the details of what happened.

It's the same with the hurricane example. Hurricanes aren't normal so he have to be told about the results. There was only one bottle of water in the store. Normally there would be dozens or hundreds. It's interesting news that there is only one.

Six months from now they might call it *the* drone strike that killed the general. That's because six months from now they will probably believe everyone has heard about it. It's not new information to anybody. It wouldn't need to be introduced or explained. It would just be referred to as a fact that everyone knows. You use "the" to refer to things already known or that are clear from context.

_My friend was *driving me *to work but the car broke down._

With the words "driving me", it's obvious that a car is involved.

_The American military killed a high-ranking Iranian general. The drone strike took place near the airport._

We have no reason to know it was a drone strike from the first sentence. The general could have been killed many ways. We have to introduce the information to the reader.

_The American military killed a high-ranking Iranian general. He died in a drone strike that took place near the airport._


----------



## kansi

kentix said:


> there is no normal amount of times for a strike to kill a top-ranked Iranian general and no normal amount of attempts to kill a top-ranked Iranian general.


why here is it being talked about the amount of time for a strike to kill someone and the amount of attempts to kill someone?


----------



## DonnyB

Unfortunately, this thread has become entangled with a separate thread *retaliation for <a> missile strike that [article] *to such an extent that neither is retaining the clear focus needed to to produce the useful focused discussion we aim for in our forum.  Members have done their best to answer and I hope kansi has found the informarion helpful, but I'm afraid I must now call a halt to this particular quest.  Thanks to everyone for their contributions.  DonnyB - moderator.


----------

