Comment by mdp2021
4 hours ago
You should not look at superficial similarities between languages, but at logic.
To the question: "What is he?", the answer can be "He is married, tall, doctor in medicine".
On another point of view, "He is a doctor" = "one in the set of the doctors". (But which one of the crowd there? The tall one is the doctor.)
"He is doctor in medicine": identity; "He is a doctor": aside property.
With different expressions, you are not expressing the same thing, but different ideas (some of them more preponderant in use in a territory).
I'm not sure why, but sentence feels forced and unnatural, and as a result a bit unconvincing. My intuition is to insert an "and" at the end of those three options and then it feels like you can't drop the "a", i.e. "married, tall, and a doctor in medicine". I mean, maybe you can but the sentence feels odd to me.
And the weird part is that you can put those three properties in any order, and you would not place an "a" in front of the other two.
Do you also feel «forced and unnatural»
"Il est médecin // il est un médecin // il est le médecin"? "Él es médico // él es un médico" // él es il médico"?
Are you feeling through memory or through logic? Why would it work in some languages but not other related ones?
What about "He is Commander, General, Loyal Servant, Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife"?
> you would not place an "a" in front
That is because 'tall' and 'married' are adjectives. So: "a tall fellow, a married man, and a doctor in medicine".
Similarities between languages is a much more intuitive approach for non-English speakers. This comment just explains an English idiom in terms of English idioms.
> Similarities between languages
If they are substantial instead of superficial.
> This comment just explains ... idiom in terms of
the logic behind it. Which is common to many languages.