Usage of articles in a sentence

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#1

I saw the following sentence in one of the reading sections:

Letzten Monat hat die Moderatorin Chiara Besuch bekommen.

Why is there no article in front of “Besuch”?

Thanks!

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#2

Great question @itselkhan!

There are some situations where nouns don’t require an article - they are called “Nullartikel”.

In this case I’d say that “Besuch” is used as an abstract noun (Abstraktum):

Here, “der Besuch” means “guest”, or “guests”, and not “the visit”. It has no plural in this context. “Die Besuche” means multiple visits. But this wouldn’t make any sense, because Chiara gets “Besuch” just once - at least we just know about this one occasion. But who visited and how many visitors/guests came over? We don’t know (yet), because it’s not specified. So the noun “Besuch” is used in a general, or abstract way. The “Abstraktum” is often used for not specified things, concepts, feelings, conditions, and other non-tangible things.

Examples:

  • Ich liebe Fahrradfahren.
  • Er spricht oft von Freiheit und Gleichberechtigung.
  • Ich bekomme gerne Besuch.

Btw:

There are other possibilities for a “Nullartikel”!
E.g. when it’s the plural of the indefinite article (Ich mag Nudeln = I like noodles)

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#3

Thank you for the explanation, Toby!!

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#4

Thanks for the explanation @Toby . A student of mine just asked me the same question @yulia.arkadeva maybe this post explains your question?

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