Hello guys. Please, help me to understand following matters..
If to say: "This is the movie I like" -
1) It means this is the only movie I like?
2) It means this is one of the movies I like and "the" is here just to emphasise or point to that particular movie? Or maybe "the" has another purpose here which I can't figure out?
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2nd question:
Imagine there is a table in a room. On the table there lie several good pencils and several bad ones.
1) Is it appropriate to say: "Look, this is the good pencil." Or I could say it only if there was one good pencil on the table, so "a" should be used?
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3d question:
Imagine there are many books someone owes to somebody. One of them is in front of the speaker and listener, some are somewhere else, in another room, for instance.
1) Is it correct to say: "This is the book I owe you." ?
2) Can it have a meaning that these is just one of the books I owe you? Or "a" should be used (This is a book I owe you) ?
It seems like I can't understand if the always means "the only one", or it can be just like an emphasise/pointer to a particular instance?
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I see my question can be big enough, but I hope someone will help. These articles drive me mad :) Thanks.
Replies
Have a look at USE 11 on this reference page and I hope you'll find the answers for yourself :)
Still, I'd like to try to answer your questions properly one by one:
Q1: In my opinion, it's very likely that the speaker has various favorite movies and the movie he mentions is one of them. There has to be a specific list of movies for him to choose from, and among the given movies he particularly like that one movie. With that being said, it'd be much clearer if he said "This is the movie I like the best."
Q2: Agree with your second thought; I'd go with the indefinite article "a" as there are several good pencils, not just one.
Q3: Since the speaker doesn't just owe the listener one book, he can't say "This is the book I owe you." Rather, he should say "This is a book I owe you." or "This is one of the books I owe you."