The Article: Idioms and Stereotyped Actions

Previously we discussed about the anaphoric uses of the definite article. On this entry, we will see both articles (definite and indefinite) from a very problematic perspective for the students: idioms and stereotyped actions. On this occasion, the answer to "why do we need a definite (or indefinite) artice?" has no grammatical base but a social one.

Although the name is different, the book Nueva Gramática de la lengua española from La Real Academia Española defines idiom exactly as Wikipedia does. That is, a group of words established as usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words. For example, in Spanish we have "echar una mano" which does not mean to take out oneself´s hand and toss it away but actually to help someone. As we can see, there is an indefinite article in this idiom and that indefinite article is fixed, which means it cannot be removed or replaced by a definite one. "Echar la mano" is considered incorrect. Another example is "mirar las musarañas" where the definite article is also fixed and cannot be replaced or removed. Nevertheless there are some exceptions to this rule. There are a very few idioms which the article they posses is interchangeable. That would be the case of "levantarle la/una mano a alguien" where we can choose between any article. Although this case is not common and, as it was said, most of the idioms cannot change the article they posses.

More idioms with fixed articles are:

Dar a alguien la mano
Aflojar el ritmo
Ver las estrellas
Hacerse el sueco
(...)

There is another verbal group with fixed definite article which are not considered idioms. That is the stereotyped actions often done: "tomar el autobús, pasear por la playa, ir al médico, leer el periódico, hacer la cama, salir a la calle...". These sentences required of the definite article to make sense because although they could change it for the indefinite one, that would result in a slightly change of the meaning. Take for example the sentence "salir a la calle". When we say this sentence with the definite article, we mean that we are going outside, out from home. If we change the definite article for a indefinite one "salir a una calle", the sentence would not be referring to go outside from home but to go to some specific street not mentioned (maybe Broadway Street in New York, or maybe Pase de Recoletos in Madrid). Therefore, these sentences have their article fixed. Also, if we pay attention we would realize that most of these sentences refer to some public places we share with everyone (la calle, la playa, el autobús...) hence their "social" status.

However, it is crucial that we say that in the case of the stereotyped actions, the verb fulfills a fundamental role for the presence of the definite article. For example: "Leer el periódico es algo bueno"  the definite article is possible because of the stereotyped action status but if we change the verb "leer" for "resumir" like in "Resumir el periódico es algo bueno", we have that the definite article presented here is not because of a stereotyped actions but because of an anaphoric use (saw in previous entries) and so, that "el periódico" should have been mentioned before in the speech in order to make sense the definite article in the sentence with the verb "resumir". If it has not been mentioned previously, the correct form would be the use of the indefinite article.