OMISSION OF THE ARTICLE BEFORE PREDICATIVE NOUNS FOR PROFESSION, OCCUPATION ETC. IN NORWEGIAN

Abstract

The paper considers reasons for omission of the indefinite article with predicative nouns for profession, occupation, nationality and others in the Norwegian language. There is a rule in Norwegian grammar prescribing the omission of the indefinite article in sentences of the following type: Tor er norsklærer. — ‘Tor is a teacher of Norwegian’. Though, reference books on Norwegian grammar do not provide any explanation for this phenomenon. These types of nouns are analyzed in terms of the relationship between their meaning and denotation, i.e. if they belong to identifying nouns (rigid designators) or predicative nouns (non-rigid, or flaccid designators). Typical rigid designators are proper names and nouns for natural objects like lemon, tiger, gold etc. A typical flaccid designator is student — this noun denotes a class that an object can either belong or not belong to. The semantic opposition of those two types of designators is reflected in their functions: flaccid designators can take predicative positions, while rigid designators can only be used to denote an object or a class of objects. A conclusion is made, that those nouns are flexible designators, and as such designators, in a predicative position they rather represent an object’s feature than an object itself, and consequently, the use of article is not needed. This conclusion can be used for contrastive studies for English language which requires an indefinite article in sentences of a similar type. Further, the nouns in question are shown as capable of being rigid designators and therefore take the positions of a sentence’s subject or taxonomic predicate.