聊一聊冠词的泛指和特指

100词写作社群里面出现了这样一个句子：Thirdly, as their lives are being dominated by smartphones, students and workers are susceptible to nomophobia, feeling extremely anxious about not having access to their phones. This means they are becoming a slave to their phone.有同学问到了这样一个问题：为什么they后面可以跟一个单数名词a slave? 是不是要改为slaves?这是一个挺有代表性的问题，它属于地道英文里面经常出现的一个结构：XX are a place/student/person… 比如BBC就有这样一个句子：Creating looks directly inspired by the catwalk but at half the price, these shops are a great place to pick up a couple of trend-led pieces.回到前面的句子，they are becoming a slave to their phone这里"a slave"不能理解为“一名奴隶”，而是一个泛指的概念，相当于slaves，句子实际上相当 ………………………………