# Please pass the rolls.



## HSS

A paper says the use of the definite article in 'Please pass the rolls' is adequate when this utterance happens at a table with several roll baskets. There is no mention of 'the rolls' before or 'the rolls' hasn't been in the knowledge of the hearer. What does 'the rolls' in this conversation refer to? My take is 'a basket of rolls' Am I on the right track?

Hiro


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## grassy

The rolls that are there.


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## dojibear

*The* food items on this table that are passable and are *rolls*.

There is no mention about "how" to pass them: the whole container? just an individual roll? That is covered by etiquette, so it is different in different places. Similarly if there are multiple containers near different diners, who should pass which one? That is also etiquette, so it is different for a formal dinner and a small family dinner, different in Sidney and Birmingham, and so on.

We say similar things at meals about anything that is on the table (being served to diners) and is passable (out of your reach, but within other diners' reach):

_Please pass *the *pepper/salt/gravy/meat/chicken/celery/fish/soup/pie/cake/potatoes/salad/beans/ketchup/mustard...._


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## HSS

I see. Then if the speaker just said, "Please pass a roll," you would see any one individual roll picked and passed from the set of rolls. Correct?

>_Please pass *the *pepper/salt/gravy/meat/chicken/celery/fish/soup/pie/cake/potatoes/salad/beans/ketchup/mustard...._
When it comes to a singular with the definite article, fine. It's the unique entity there, which is identifiable by the hearer.


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## elroy

HSS said:


> "Please pass a roll,"


This is unidiomatic.
Please pass *me* a roll.


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## kentix

"Please pass the rolls." - Hand me the container the rolls are in.

"Please pass me a roll." Take a roll out of the container and hand it to me.


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## Myridon

kentix said:


> "Please pass me a roll." Take a roll out of the container and hand it to me.


I would still pass the container because of "etiquette" and "hygiene".


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## kentix

It depends on how formal the dinner is. In a close family situation etiquette might be less important and convenience more important. It just depends on the people involved. Someone could certainly pass you an orange without hygiene coming into it directly.


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## HSS

What if, what if the rolls are on a heavy plate you can hardly lift, and, say, etiquette does not dictate here as among family? Would 'Pass the rolls, please' prompt the hearer to pick any number of rolls?


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## elroy

HSS said:


> Would 'Pass the rolls, please' prompt the hearer to pick any number of rolls?


No.  They might say, “Sorry, I can’t lift the whole plate.”  “Pass the rolls” always means “Pass all the rolls.”


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## bandini

HSS said:


> A paper says the use of the definite article in 'Please pass the rolls' is adequate when this utterance happens at a table with several roll baskets. There is no mention of 'the rolls' before or 'the rolls' hasn't been in the knowledge of the hearer. What does 'the rolls' in this conversation refer to? My take is 'a basket of rolls' Am I on the right track?
> 
> Hiro


yes


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## kentix

HSS said:


> There is no mention of 'the rolls' before or 'the rolls' hasn't been in the knowledge of the hearer.


Everybody who sits down at the table can see all the food on the table, including the rolls. That introduces the knowledge of the rolls to everyone. Not all knowledge comes from words. The senses also provide knowledge. Those are the only rolls pertinent in the context so "the" is appropriate. You wouldn't ask someone to pass rolls from someone else's house.


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## elroy

HSS said:


> A paper says the use of the definite article in 'Please pass the rolls' is adequate when this utterance happens at a table with several roll baskets.


If it’s a large table with several baskets of rolls, “the rolls” will mean the closest basket to the addressee.


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## Thomas Tompion

"Please pass a roll,"        


elroy said:


> This is unidiomatic.
> Please pass *me* a roll.


This is gainsaid by the ngrams: Google Books Ngram Viewer

Certainly both are possible British English.


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## Myridon

elroy said:


> If it’s a large table with several baskets of rolls, “the rolls” will mean the closest basket to the addressee.


In my experience, it's the basket closest to the person who responds to the request first. 


Thomas Tompion said:


> "Please pass a roll,"
> 
> This is gainsaid by the ngrams: Google Books Ngram Viewer
> 
> Certainly both are possible British English.


The first hits that come back for "pass a roll" seem to have to do with rolling dice, not bread.


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## kentix

Thomas Tompion said:


> This is gainsaid by the ngrams


You know just enough to be dangerous with ngrams. 

We are talking about a specific context here, but the vast majority of your ngram results have nothing to do with that (if any of them do). If you look at the results there are pages of links to gambling sites that teach you how to play craps, where that phrase is apparently pertinent.

Then there are results like this:

- Sheets with a fine grain structure were obtained by a hot rolling schedule of three passes at 400 ° C with 30 % reduction per *pass, a roll *speed of 50 rpm, and a presoak of one hour.

- The roll [of dice] will either have a "pass" or "fail" outcome. The Gamemaster will have a Difficulty rating you have to beat, and if you do you will *pass the roll*.

- He made various recommendations with a view to enabling the vessel to* pass a roll* test .

And one from one of the gambling sites:

- The casino will collect the chips of anyone betting* "pass". A roll *of 12, however, is considered...

(Actually, most of the results might just be different versions of this same book with this same wording, since a new version was reissued every year. _The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas 2003_, _The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas 2004_, _The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas 2005_, etc.)

I don't see anything about dinner rolls.

Also, look at the zeros in the percentage. It's about 0.000000010%. It's a very, very small incidence and most of those are quirks, as seen above.


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## HSS

If this query is purely semantic and not pragmatic (etiquette, protocols, and hygiene aside), and you see several rolls on the table, could 'Please pass the roll*s*' possibly bring you to give just one roll to the speaker? In other words, does 'the roll*s*' mean to range from all the rolls to one roll?


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## DonnyB

HSS said:


> If this query is purely semantic and not pragmatic (etiquette, protocols, and hygiene aside), and you see several rolls on the table, could 'Please pass the roll*s*' possibly bring you to give just one roll to the speaker? In other words, does 'the roll*s*' mean to range from all the rolls to one roll?


No: in that scenario I would say "Pass me a roll".  But I don't think I've ever been anywhere where there wasn't a basket of rolls light enough to pass the whole basket.


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## HSS

So 'the rolls' directly refers to *all* the rolls on the table. Am I right, Donny?


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## DonnyB

HSS said:


> So 'the rolls' directly refers to *all* the rolls on the table. Am I right, Donny?


Yes, but I've only ever been anywhere where there's been a basket or plate with them on, unless eating at home or in someone's house.


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## kentix

That's just the standard format for everything.

Pass the rolls, the butter, the salt, the peas, the salad, the potatoes, ...

You pass the container that contains whatever is asked for.


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## dojibear

HSS said:


> So 'the rolls' directly refers to *all* the rolls on the table. Am I right, Donny?


In my personal opinion, that is not correct. I am not asking for someone to pass me *all *the rolls on the table. 

I must refer slightly to etiquette, which is built into this grammar. In the US/UK, you only eat food from your own dishes. You never eat food from common dishes -- those are "shared serving dishes". Usually each serving dish has a serving spoon in it, and you will use this spoon to make the transfer. In other words, shared food in/on the serving dishes is never touched by anything (spoon, fork, chopsticks) that has been in your mouth. Rolls and other small pieces of bread can be transferred using your fingers (which have not been in your mouth).

If you want to eat a roll, you will transfer a roll from a serving dish of rolls to your personal plate. Then, on your plate, you might break the roll into pieces. You might add butter (or jam) to a piece of roll, before eating it.

So "pass the rolls" means "I cannot reach any serving dish with rolls in it. Please move one of the the serving dishes of rolls close enough to me that I can transfer a roll from it to my plate". In other words, the person helping you might not "pass it to you" ("hand it to you"). They might just place it near you, so you can reach it.


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## HSS

Thanks, everyone. Dojibear, the protocol is the same here. We use a serving utensil to make the transfer to individual dishes/bowels, unless you are eating with your family or anybody similar whose hygiene you trust.

Maybe I should change rolls to oranges. This way you don't have to give much thought to how you transfer.

Say, there are some oranges on the table. Could you possibly say 'Please pass the oranges' just to get a single orange? I know 'Pass me an orange' is THE de facto standard, but in some circumstances, would you say 'Please pass the oranges' when you mean to get any one orange 'on the table'?


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## dojibear

HSS said:


> Say there are some oranges on the table. Could you possibly say 'Please pass the oranges' just to get a single orange? I know 'Pass me an orange' is THE de facto standard, but in some circumstances, would you say 'Please pass the oranges' when you mean to get any one orange 'on the table'?


No. You would not ask for 5 things if you wanted 1 thing.

If the oranges are in a dish, then "please pass the oranges" means pass the dish, not an individual orange.


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## HSS

How about if the oranges are sparsely spread on the table with clearly only one orange located in front of the listener. The rest are out of easy reach from him/her. You say to him/her "Pass me *the* orange, please." Is this sufficient enough to indicate you want the orange in front of him/her. (You are not looking/nodding at it when you ask him/her; rather, you are looking at him/her)


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## Glasguensis

Although the person could arguably deduce which orange you were referring to, we would say “your orange” here rather than “the orange”, to remove the doubt.


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## HSS

Glasguensis said:


> Although the person could arguably deduce which orange you were referring to, we would say “your orange” here rather than “the orange”, to remove the doubt.


Though it's not really an orange that is owned by/belongs to him/her, I understand you would use 'your orange.'


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## kentix

If it doesn't belong to them, it's _that_ orange.


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## HSS

Then you have to look at the orange. I was thinking you were not looking at it. ... Well, maybe, you can do without looking at it using the demonstrative. Then again, we are now talking about the spacial deixis not 'the.' So it doesn't matter. Yup, eyeing the object --- the orange --- is better.


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## Glasguensis

No, even looking at it we’d be more likely to use *that orange* if *your orange* isn’t appropriate.


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## HSS

Yes, that's what I mean, Glasquensis. I was exploring some options without looking at it, but it seems that/your is necessary whether you look at it or not. And more than likely you say that/your and look at it, to be sure.


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## elroy

@HSS, I don't understand why you're asking all these questions. 
I don't see anything special about the scenarios you're describing in terms of the use of articles/determiners, singular/plural, etc.  There are no exceptions here: "the oranges" means "the oranges," not "an orange"; "that orange" means "that orange," etc.  This is all very straightforward.


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## HSS

elroy, there are a whole lot of languages that do not have the notion of definiteness lexically built in themselves, and mine is one of them. And although many linguists have made countless attempts to pinpoint what definiteness really is, the mystery has not been fully solved. We have come close to the solution with the 'uniqueness' theory, where the listener has to be able to uniquely identify the referent and oftentimes the referent is the whole set of entities out there because you don't have to think through processes that way; the answer is straightforward --- all or whole, but it has proven only to be a sufficient condition. There are a lot to be covered. Weak definites (or, sometimes we call them sloppy definites ... I personally like this better ... they are really sloppy  ) are one area. As you see, when there are several baskets of rolls on the table, and when asked to pass the rolls to the speaker, pragmatically you pick the basket closest to you, as explained here. You don't pick all the rolls. If the 'uniqueness' theory applied, you would naturally pick all the rolls; hence, all the baskets.

So there is not always a guarantee 'the' refers to all. Native speakers could intuitively tell how large it covers but non-native speakers sometimes fail. In the case of oranges spread out on the table, I assumed 'the' wouldn't cover all but couldn't tell I was right.


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## elroy

There is nothing special about “Please pass the rolls” even when there are multiple baskets.  It means please pass the rolls that are in the basket closest to you.  The other baskets don’t matter.


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## HSS

Yes, I learned that here. It deviates from the normal 'uniquely identifiable' theory. In the application of the theory, 'the' automatically points to 'all the rolls' on the table. But in the actuality, you mean the rolls in the basket closest to you. This cannot be perceived by some non-natives, like me.


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## elroy

It doesn’t deviate from any theory.  “the” is used to refer to something known to both the speaker and the listener.  You may have let yourself get distracted by the fact that “rolls” is plural.  If it were “Please pass me the salt shaker,” it would be inconceivable for this to refer to multiple salt shakers (even if there were more than one on the table).  “rolls” is plural simply because there are multiple rolls in the single basket.  It has nothing to do with the other baskets on the table, just like “salt shaker” has nothing to do with the other salt shakers. If the basket of rolls had only one roll left it in, and the speaker knew that, they would say “Please pass me the roll.”  So you should think of “the rolls” as meaning “the basket of rolls.”  If someone wanted all the baskets, they would say “Please pass me the bread baskets.”


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## HSS

Yes, but the first utterance is only 'Please pass the rolls.' It's not touching on any 'baskets.' Simple 'the rolls' goes to 'all the rolls on the table' in terms of the 'uniquely identifiable' theory. Native speakers can see the utterance implies 'Please pass the (basket of) rolls,' but I couldn't. But you taught us that, and thank you.


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## elroy

HSS said:


> Simple 'the rolls' goes to 'all the rolls on the table' in terms of the 'uniquely identifiable' theory.


No, it doesn’t, as I explained in my last post.


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## Wordy McWordface

HSS said:


> Simple 'the rolls' goes to 'all the rolls on the table' in terms of the 'uniquely identifiable' theory.


As Elroy says: It doesn't.

If you say 'Please pass the rolls', this does not necessarily mean 'all the rolls on the table' - any more than it means 'all the rolls in the restaurant' or 'all the rolls in the world'.


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## bandini

HSS said:


> elroy, there are a whole lot of languages that do not have the notion of definiteness lexically built in themselves, and mine is one of them. And although many linguists have made countless attempts to pinpoint what definiteness really is, the mystery has not been fully solved. We have come close to the solution with the 'uniqueness' theory, where the listener has to be able to uniquely identify the referent and oftentimes the referent is the whole set of entities out there because you don't have to think through processes that way; the answer is straightforward --- all or whole, but it has proven only to be a sufficient condition. There are a lot to be covered. Weak definites (or, sometimes we call them sloppy definites ... I personally like this better ... they are really sloppy  ) are one area. As you see, when there are several baskets of rolls on the table, and when asked to pass the rolls to the speaker, pragmatically you pick the basket closest to you, as explained here. You don't pick all the rolls. If the 'uniqueness' theory applied, you would naturally pick all the rolls; hence, all the baskets.
> 
> So there is not always a guarantee 'the' refers to all. Native speakers could intuitively tell how large it covers but non-native speakers sometimes fail. In the case of oranges spread out on the table, I assumed 'the' wouldn't cover all but couldn't tell I was right.


This theory of which you speak, in which the Japanese language does not have "definiteness", could you please explain it to the rest of us?  Because all languages are an imperfect attempt to describe the same reality in which we all inhabit so it's remarkable that a language like Japanese could evolve, and give birth to both a rich culture and sophisticated technology, without having this basic human construct.  Anything that can happen to you can happen to me. If a dog bites you...or me, it's a specific dog. No?


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## elroy

bandini said:


> Anything that can happen to you can happen to me. If a dog bites you...or me, it's a specific dog. No?


This is a good point.  Although Japanese, as an articleness language, would say something like "Rolls pass please" (no article), I assume the speaker would mean, and the listener would understand, the same thing as "Please pass the rolls" in English (one basket of rolls, not all the rolls on the table).


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## HSS

elroy said:


> No, it doesn’t, as I explained in my last post.


You are absolutely right, elroy. This is where the 'uniquely identifiable' theory fails to explain all the uses of the definite articles.


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## elroy

What I’m saying is that the “uniquely identifiable” theory _does_ account for the rolls example: the rolls in question _are_ uniquely identifiable.  The speaker has a specific group of rolls in mind, and the listener knows which ones are meant.   It works!


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## HSS

bandini said:


> This theory of which you speak, in which the Japanese language does not have "definiteness", could you please explain it to the rest of us?  Because all languages are an imperfect attempt to describe the same reality in which we all inhabit so it's remarkable that a language like Japanese could evolve, and give birth to both a rich culture and sophisticated technology, without having this basic human construct.  Anything that can happen to you can happen to me. If a dog bites you...or me, it's a specific dog. No?


Specificity and Definiteness are different. When you say 'If a dog bites you ...,' you are talking about a specific dog but not a definite dog. Specificity is a speaker-oriented semantic feature but definiteness is a listener-oriented one. A specific entity is a one and only entity (or set of entities) and the speaker knows which one in the entire Universe he/she is talking about. A definite entity is also a one and only entity (or set of entities) but the listener should be able to uniquely identify it in whatever way. When you say 'If the dog bites you ...,' the listener cannot necessarily/always identify the referent. He/she may ask you what dog. The Japanese have a way to identify the range of the referent (set), but often it goes through a different process and, as a result of that, fails to identify the range the English language points to.


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## Glasguensis

You seem to be saying that if you were sitting at a table with someone who spoke both Japanese and English you would have to ask for the salt in English because in Japanese your dinner companion wouldn’t understand what salt you were talking about.


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## HSS

Glasguensis said:


> You seem to be saying that if you were sitting at a table with someone who spoke both Japanese and English you would have to ask for the salt in English because in Japanese your dinner companion wouldn’t understand what salt you were talking about.


A singular entity is fine, but when it comes to a set of plural entities, that's where non-native speakers 'sometimes' have difficulty defining the range of 'all.' It could be all rolls on the table. It could be all rolls in the nearest basket.


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## JulianStuart

HSS said:


> Yes, but the first utterance is only 'Please pass the rolls.' It's not touching on any 'baskets.' Simple 'the rolls' goes to 'all the rolls on the table' in terms of the 'uniquely identifiable' theory. Native speakers can see the utterance implies 'Please pass the (basket of) rolls,' but I couldn't. But you taught us that, and thank you.


It's because of what we know about how rolls are usually present on a table and how people obtain them.  They are not "directly on the table", but are to be found in one or more containers that contain rollS.  So when we speak of "passing the rolls", it would never occur to us, as listener or speaker, that it might mean "please pass me all the containers that have rolls in".  So we know from the _situation and context_ that


elroy said:


> If it’s a large table with several baskets of rolls, “the rolls” will mean the closest basket to the addressee.


In Japanese, it's the _context and situation_ that determines whether or not a personal pronoun can be dropped or needs to be included.  In English, we rarely omit them.

There may be baskets each with different kinds of rolls (white, wheat, sourdough etc) and in this case we will need to specify which of the containers we would like.  

If I were at a dinner where I was responsible for clearing the remaining food from the main course so my friends could be served dessert, and I needed to remove the unused plates and cutlery and bowls of salad and baskets of rolls, I might ask for their help and say to all my friends "Pass the rolls" and mean "Pass all the (baskets of) rolls" to me so I don't have to walk around myself to collect them into one place.


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## HSS

elroy said:


> What I’m saying is that the “uniquely identifiable” theory _does_ account for the rolls example: the rolls in question _are_ uniquely identifiable. The speaker has a specific group of rolls in mind, and the listener knows which ones are meant.   It works!


A-ha, now I know what I should tell you  ! Some non-native speakers of English fail to identify the range of 'all.' If you entirely rely on the “uniquely identifiable” theory, you don't know what is the parent set because the theory does not define it. It is entirely dependent on how your linguistic faculty has been trained. Native speakers intuitively see the right parent set, but non-native speakers' intuition may lead to a different set, or a different range of entities. That's why many linguists have been doing research on what really is 'definiteness.' Upon hearing 'the rolls,' my brain envisioned all the rolls on the table, not all the rolls in the basket right in front. Most non-natives can intuitively identify a singular definite entity most of the time, but plural definite entities every once in a while cast some difficulty in that they have a hard time understanding what is the parent set (i.e., the all).

Thanks, elroy. I learned in this case the speaker is looking at the rolls in the basket closest to you as all.


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## kentix

It's a matter of practicality mixed with grammar. Both are important. As a diner you might take one roll or possibly two to eat. No one expects a single diner to take 15 rolls for his meal. If all the rolls are identical, then it doesn't matter how many baskets there are because to fulfill the diner's need for one or two rolls, one basket is more than sufficient (ignoring empty baskets for this example). There is no need to pass three baskets of 15 rolls each when the diner is only expected to take one (or possibly two). So generally, only one basket is needed and the closest one is usually the most convenient for the other diners as a group. So one basket is passed to fulfill the real need present.

If there are different kinds of rolls in different baskets then more information is needed. The diner will have to be more specific.

"Can you please pass the sourdough rolls."

Again, it is reasonable to expect he will take one, so only one basket is required, even if there are two baskets containing sourdough rolls. And there is no point in passing any basket without sourdough rolls. So again, to fulfill the actual need, the normal case where a diner wants to take a reasonable number of rolls (one or two), one basket is more than enough.

If he says "Please pass me all the rolls" you will probably wonder what strange thing he is thinking. No one needs 45 rolls during a meal.


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## Glasguensis

I think this is a cultural issue rather than a linguistic one. Although it would be unusual, it’s not completely out of the question that someone could say « Rolls, please ». The result would still be that someone conveniently placed would pass them one basket of rolls: we simply do not expect anyone to demand all the rolls on the table, it would be a completely extraordinary request. Imagine that a table had been badly set and one person’s chopsticks are just out of reach. If he asks « Pass me the chopsticks please », would anyone really interpret this as all the chopsticks on the table?


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## elroy

Glasguensis said:


> If he asks « Pass me the chopsticks please », would anyone really interpret this as all the chopsticks on the table?


Of course not.  As with the rolls, he would be thinking of his particular chopsticks.
Both of these are ordinary uses of "the."


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## HSS

It's a mixture of semantics and pragmatics. And pragmatics includes, yes, cultural and personal tendencies. Definiteness, as linguists like my colleagues and me use, is about how 'the hearer,' not the speaker, can uniquely identify what the speaker refers to as a define entity with whatever tool in or outside language. When 'the hearers' realize the speakers are referring to definite entities, the formers use various identifiability paths according to the situations they are in. In some situation, these paths are easily created in the hearers’ brains, in some, the hearers 'cooperate' (Grice's Principal of Cooperation) to think up probable paths.

If you hear someone say, “I drove to New York, but halfway through the engine stopped,” although the speaker didn’t say anything about the car he/she used, the hearer cooperates to decide the engine was that of the car he/she used. The hearer creates a frame (the car) and the only engine in that is the engine of the car. This is the path he/she (instantaneously) walks in this particular case.

The 'hearer' needs to ascertain what is the whole/all defined by 'the,' but the pathway a non-native speaker takes to find it is not always the same as native speakers. The paths are often affected by L1, and how the learners are taught in their English classes, ... and the culture they have grown up in. (Well, language is part of it! : -)) Japanese learners of English, because they don't have a lexical form to deliver and receive the notion of 'the,' often hardly can tell what 'the something' refers to unless it refers to a first-mention item (an item already mentioned), or some such. This is easy, but if it requires some inference, they sometimes have difficulty finding the same path as native speakers. Rolls/oranges examples if they are indifferentiable from one another, and placed on the table in indifferentiable containers would present a problem to them because simply there is no pathway that they could imagine they can borrow from their experience in Japanese with the only information, explicit or not. In Japanese, the speaker has to be more explanatory, using more words or using gestures. You are correct that no one would gather all rolls/oranges and give them to the speaker; often it's unthinkable. More often than not, however, they will collect a few (to, possibly, a lot of, if not all,) rolls from whatever basket(s), or pick up one (most likely), two (maybe), three (maybe) etc. basket(s), and give it/them to the speaker simply because they, as the Japanese hearer, don't have a path to decide exactly what range of the entities out there is being referred to. If only the words ‘basket of’ were added, it would be a bit better; nonetheless, most Japanese learners would still look a bit puzzled, saying inwardly ‘What basket?’ ‘Pass-rolls (in Japanese)’ will not give the hearer the exact definite idea, although it does a rough idea, resulting in the same aforementioned outcomes --- a few to a lot of rolls, one, two, three baskets etc. (If specific enough words were added, or you pointed to the rolls/basket(s) while saying the request, no one would fail to choose the right one(s)!  ). Therefore, I asked the question because I was not sure what exactly is referred to. And you taught me the range of the referent. Thank you!

As an aside, 'specificity' is different. ‘Specificity’ does not involve the hearer. 'Specificity' is the speaker's perspective. - The man came to see me. - A man came to see me. The two men are both specific. Teachers often tell his/her students 'the' is used for a specific entity, but that's not exactly true. - The murderer of Johnson, whoever that is, must be insane. ‘The murderer’ should be definite to the hearer but it is not specific to the speaker. -The man came to see me. If you assume the hearer cannot identify who he is, then you should use 'A man.' Still specific (to you, the speaker), but indefinite (to the hearer).

Well, thanks, I really gained the knowledge about the rolls-in-the-basket example.

Hiro


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