No article?
Hello, guys!
Could you please say why we don't use any article in this sentence?
"I don't think anything could hurt Harry at Hogwarts while Dumbledore's headmaster".
As far as I know, we have to put an article before any kind of professions, am I wrong?

Question

Answer

Hello. Here it is correct with or without "the". I think when you are talking about a specific position, such as "leader", "boss", "headmaster", "general", etc you can omit the article. Sorry I can't explain better than that, but I hope this helps!

Answer

Yup, you don't need it here. You could say "the headmaster", but that would imply (very subtly) that he might not be headmaster for long.

In this case, "while Dumbledore's headmaster" means something like "as long as Dumbledore's in charge." ;)

Answer

I think this has to do with determiners. An article is a determiner but so is a possessive noun. Here "Dumbledore's" is a possessive so there's no need to have the article as well.

Answer

I agree with Logan Susnick.
There is no article in English after the 's possessive case:

His brother's car. (no article before "car")
Peter's house. (no article before "house")

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