DEFINITE REFERENCE
The definiteness of a common noun is indicated by the article the. It means that what you are talking about is already anchored in your hearer’s knowledge and can be identified in one of three ways: (a)within the discourse, by previous mention, with the indefinite article a(n)in the case of a common noun; (b) outside the discourse, in the context or situation; and (c) from general knowledge. Within the discourse, the reference may be anaphoric (looking backwards) or cataphoric (looking forwards). The anaphor often expresses the antecedent in different words, as in the following news item in The Week. They refers back to the male members of the Nuseibeh clan; the most revered site in Christendom refers forward to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem:
The male members of the Nuseibeh clan have a long and proud tradition. For more than a thousand years, they have been the custodians of the most revered site in Christendom: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
The referent of a definite head noun can be identified cataphorically by the information contained in the post-modifier, as in: the bus coming now, the journey home, the Ministry of Health; or by a determiner or pre-modifier: this bus, the first bus, the red bus.
Reference to shared knowledge immediately identifies the referent of, for example, the sun, the sky, the floods, the government, the political situation.
Clearly dependent upon inference for their interpretation, but totally normal in certain professional registers of English, are metonymic uses, where the thing stands for the person, as in the following examples:
The ham sandwich has left without paying.
The kidney transplant in 104 is asking for a glass of water.
When a personal noun, such as secretary, queen, director, head, functions as Subject Complement (Cs) in a clause and refers to a unique social role, definiteness can be marked either by the or by zero. As Cs in a verbless clause introduced by when, while, if, although, only zero is possible:
He soon became director/the director of the firm.
While Minister of Health, he introduced many reforms.
