[Mesorah] Heh Hayedia

[Michael Hamm]

On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 9:47 AM, R' Seth Mandel <mandels at ou.org> wrote, in part:
<< REMT is correct regarding the Bronx.  The issue is not whether the
Bronx always appears with the definite article, but rather whether a
specific place name may appear with the article.  Names such as
Manhattan, Riverdale, or Elizabeth cannot accept the definite article,
whereas Bronx always does in speech, and usually does in writing.
There are different classes of nouns in English. "Mass nouns" or
"uncountable nouns" such as "water" do not accept the definite article
unless they are used eliptically for "a/the cup of water"; e.g "bring
the water here" is eliptical, vs."water irrigates plants."  This is a
marker of different languages, and in Hebrew, it is standard (but not
required) to use the definite article with mass nouns.
In the same way, proper nouns in English and in most languages
generally do not accept the definite article.  However, some proper
names are "marked" as taking the definite article; this is a different
class of proper nouns, and include Bronx in English, and 'Ay in
Hebrew.>>

"Proper noun" is very hard class to pin down in English (and, I'm
guessing, in very language hat has proper nouns).  I've seen someone
claim that a good definition of "proper noun" in English is precisely
this:  Either it always takes the definite article, or it never take
the definite article, or it means precisely the same thing with and
without the definite article.

See also http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/5084/170 re Haay and its ilk.

Michael Hamm
Postdoctoral Research Scholar
Department of Psychiatry
Washington University in St. Louis
St. Louis, Mo. 63110
msh210 at gmail.com