FR: Absence d'article dans les titres

[serge_souplier]

Salut!

I would greatly appreciate your explanation of why no articles are used in the following:

"Extension du domain de la lutte"

[…] I guess that "extension du domain" is a kind of a fixed phrase. […] Am I right?

 

[Michelvar]

Hi,

For the former, it's because it is a title.
[…]

 

[serge_souplier]

Thank you! Is there any rule about articles in the book titles? We have got Le Petit Prince, L'Etranger, Le Progrès de la civilisation au XXe siècle but also Guerre et Paix. Does it mean that indefinite articles are omitted while the definite ones are retained?

 

[Bezoard]

For titles, the questions is complex. Sometimes, especially for translations, several titles coexist. Guerre et Paix and La Guerre et La Paix.

 

[Maître Capello]

See also Titre d'œuvre - avec/sans article in the Français Seulement forum.

 

[serge_souplier]

Merci beaucoup!

 

[Keith Bradford]

Guerre et Paix is a rather special case. In Russian there are no articles, so Tolstoy had no choice but write Voyna i Mir. This translates in English (by reason of English grammar rules) as War and Peace because it is not a novel about "the war and the peace" or "a war and a peace". Although some idiosyncratic translator might disagree and choose one of those titles.

For a translator to choose Une Guerre et une Paix would seem equally wilful but no grammar rule would prevent it.

 

[serge_souplier]

Thank you for taking time to explain this. It is true that in Russian there are no articles to indicate whether Tolstoy meant the Napoleonic invasion of 1812 or the general concept of war. Probably both at the same time and there is no way to render this intended ambiguity with a use of French articles.