Education of the republic of uzbekistan fergana state university facilty of foreign languages

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things.

     Iron is metal.

When concrete nouns are used in generic sense, they are usually preceded by the definite article. The indefinite article may be used when two classes of objects are compared, for example:

     A dog is stronger than a cat.

If asked for an explanation, I would say that the general conclusion about the strength of cats and dogs is first made on the level of individuals, i.e. to determine who is stronger we would probably have to get a dog and a cat to fight. Then we would pick up another dog and another cat, until some general conclusion could be drawn. This is the reason the indefinite article appears in this sentence.

It is also important to remember that different parts of the utterance have to agree with one another semantically. So the articles are mostly used in their generalizing function in utterances characterized by generic reference, for example:

     The noun is a part of speech which denotes substance.

     The tragedy of life is indifference.

 

3.   The Use of Articles as Concretizers

The generalizing function of articles is opposed to that of concretization. The latter is realized through some specific functions which are different for definite, indefinite and zero articles [15].