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This is from William Gibson's Neuromancer:

The impact with pavement drove dull rods of pain through his shins.

Why is there no article before pavement?

gotube
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Nadirspam
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    @Nadirspam: as a Gibson fan, be aware that his books aren't easy to read - and I say that as a native English speaker! I find his prose extremely dense, and his books tend to take me longer to read than their length might suggest. So don't worry if you're finding this book hard to read; you're not alone! – Steve Melnikoff Jan 28 '22 at 12:45
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    @Nadirspam as a scifi lover, I've never been able to finish a William Gibson book. If you want more approachable sci-fi that still has fun vocab lessons, Asimov is great. – Robin Clower Jan 28 '22 at 15:16

3 Answers3

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Because he is using pavement as an uncountable noun, denoting a substance.

In my experience this is not a common use, but I suspect that that is my British English background: in British English, pavement is almost always used to mean what AmE calls "sidewalk", and not as a general term for the surface material.

Note that your title says "before a name", but to an English reader "a name" means a proper noun (eg of a person or place), not a common noun such as "pavement".

Mary
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Colin Fine
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    Corks! It would never have occurred to me to think of "pavement" as a "substance". Personally, I'd say the writer isn't so good (maybe the more credible term *paving* didn't occur to him, but I don't think it's an appropriate context for an "uncountable substance" noun with that meaning anyway). – FumbleFingers Jan 27 '22 at 17:31
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    As an AmE speaker I'm familiar with this use ("Roller skates work better on pavement than on grass"), but still find the zero-article odd in the OP's example. What if the word had been "turf"? "The impact with turf drove..."? It seems allowable, but "the" would have made more sense. – Andy Bonner Jan 27 '22 at 17:45
  • You are a genius (Colin Fine). Thanks – Nadirspam Jan 27 '22 at 18:04
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    @FumbleFingers "Pavement" as a collective noun is perfectly ordinary in American English. Since Gibson is (North) American it would be expected for him to use "pavement" rather than "paving". Though I agree "the pavement" would feel more natural. – nasch Jan 28 '22 at 02:43
  • Incidentally, why is there the and not an in what the* AmE calls "sidewalk"*? Is it something concerning with the case when we speak on behalf of a whole group? – Ilya Loskutov Jan 28 '22 at 11:11
  • @Mergasov: It may be significant that both the cited source and at least one of those defending the usage here are *Canadian*. I have no idea, but might it be that Canadians are more likely to use "pavement" where most Americans would say "sidewalk"? – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '22 at 11:37
  • @FumbleFingers: a look online confirms Colin's definition (e.g. here) - particularly the part about it being a lesser-used one. Having said that, Wikipedia's article on road surface appears to use "pavement" to refer to the material, not the surface, just as Colin suggests. – Steve Melnikoff Jan 28 '22 at 12:52
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    Uncountable noun for pavement seems natural to my Canadian ear. I'm surprise it's not common in American english. – Jeffrey Jan 28 '22 at 14:13
  • @SteveMelnikoff: I'm not saying the usage is somehow "incorrect" in any formal sense. Obviously it's a "regular" derivation / extension from standard ways of using the noun *pavement. But equally obviously, it's unfamiliar* to even most native speakers, so in the context of a language learners site, the bottom line should probably be *don't use it. And specifically* in relation to the OP's actual question as asked here, this somewhat ( = slightly, very**, YMMV) "aberrant, non-standard" example doesn't mean that the "rule" he already knows isn't worth knowing. – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '22 at 16:32
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    (To a first approximation, the thing that's not worth knowing here is that some native speakers may use "pavement" as a non-count "substance" noun! :) – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '22 at 16:34
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    @FumbleFingers: oh I agree entirely! As I commented in response to the question above, I find Gibson a tough enough read as a native speaker. It's already full of neologisms, colloquialisms, and made-up slang as it is, and that's before you include his consistently dense prose. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to a non-advanced English learner...though this reminds me that I haven't read it in a while... :-) – Steve Melnikoff Jan 28 '22 at 16:41
  • @SteveMelnikoff: Ah, right. So we're on the same page, then. Actually, I suspect that if I'd encountered the cited usage in the course of reading the book for pleasure, I might not have thought all that much about it. I may be kidding myself, but I'd like to think that if I'd known all along that it came from a "competent" Anglophone, I'd have immediately assumed "slightly unusual usage, but no real significance", and just continued reading and forgotten about it. I'd need to encounter the usage several times (or discussed interminably *here*) before I'd bother remembering it as "valid". – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '22 at 16:59
  • @Mergasov the AmE was my mistake: I'd been going to write "the Americans", and changed my mind. I'll edit it. – Colin Fine Jan 28 '22 at 17:55
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    I agree that it's a perfectly valid sentence and not at all unnatural. Perhaps he had been running on soft grass and then switched to pavement, for example. I sometimes come here if I see a question in the hot network questions and I'm amazed at how often a valid sentence is called incorrect. – Thierry Jan 28 '22 at 19:19
  • The absence of an article (to me, anyway) emphasizes the contrast between what the subject landed on and what they could have landed on. "The impact with turf ..." suggests that the result is distinct from an impact with something else, while "The impact with the turf ..." leaves the focus on the impact, not the substance being impacted. – chepner Jan 29 '22 at 16:50
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As a native English speaker, I find this usage very unnatural, and I don't agree with the "uncountable noun" argument. Honestly, my first impression is that it's just a typo, and the word "the" has been left out accidentally.

However, the sentence is from a work of fiction. It's possible that the author is "breaking the rules" to achieve a particular artistic effect.

I looked up the passage in the book that contains this sentence. It's part of a scene where the character is running away from someone, and it comes after a number of sentence fragments. I think the author is trying to achieve a fast-paced, panicked effect by leaving out words.

Edited to add: There are several words in English that can be either countable or uncountable depending on context. I can't find a good online source, but I think in most cases the uncountable version is generic, and the countable version refers to a specific instance.

Another example: "You can recycle paper" (generic) versus "Please write your name on the paper" (specific).

In this case I think "The impact with pavement..." feels unnatural because it's part of a narrative: the sentence refers to a specific person at a specific place, not pavement in general.

AirOfMystery
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Clearly the vast majority of users with voting powers (and the inclination to use them in relation to this question) either already think that using pavement as an "uncountable mass noun" (same as, for example, cement or concrete) is "natural", OR they've become convinced of that judgement after reading Colin's excellent answer here.

Personally, I'm not convinced the average non-native speaker stands to gain much—if anything—from being made aware of this particular usage. And IMHO, the nature of how answers are posted and upvoted here on ELL does sometimes tend to give more prominence to usages that are uncommon, but in principle "valid". So for the the avoidance of doubt, here's a chart showing relative prevalence...

enter image description here

That chart is generated from the entire Google Books corpus. The only difference if you restrict it to British English is that the thin blue line at the bottom of the chart (for "article-less usages") disappears completely.

FumbleFingers
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    Colin said that it’s an uncommon usage, but here is why it’s valid in this particular case. I agree that telling an ESL student about all the weird special cases can be confusing rather than helpful. In this case, though, the OP was specifically asking about this one sentence that broke the pattern and confused them. – Davislor Jan 28 '22 at 18:00
  • I am not sure what voting powers have to do with a correct answer. Voting powers definitely sounds like a Meta thing. Many people, myself included, respect your contributions. There is no need to defend your answer. – EllieK Jan 28 '22 at 19:44
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    Gibson is an American-Canadian author... why are we fixating on British usage? Pavement is perfectly fine in AmE both with and without an article. From an example sentence Jennifer said nothing more for the remainder of the trip down the mountain until the Jeep finally rolled onto pavement* and they entered the still busy town.* Also, If you run often, and it's always on pavement, you could sustain significant damage to your knees. – ColleenV Jan 28 '22 at 21:48
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    For what it’s worth, as an American English speaker, I find the phrase “the impact with pavement” completely normal and unremarkable. Grammatically, it’s identical to “the impact with concrete.” But it’s probably worth knowing that “pavement” is one of those words that means something very different in the US and the UK. – Tanner Swett Jan 28 '22 at 22:46
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    @TannerSwett As an American speaker I would not consider it identical--to me "pavement" covers both concrete and asphalt and any other hypothetical cast-in-place road material. – Loren Pechtel Jan 29 '22 at 01:33
  • @ColleenV as a native speaker, could you provide some explanation why the article is left out in your examples? There is an comment above in which the author suggests omitting the wherever we underline the contrast between different kinds of surfaces. I can, in some way, find this logic applicable to the second instance but not to the one with Jennifer. – Ilya Loskutov Jan 30 '22 at 07:17
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    @Mergasov In the Jennifer example, I assume the track down from the mountain that the Jeep is driving on is a dirt road - it's only as they get close to town that the dirt is replaced with pavement, so again the emphasis is on the different kind of surface. – Showsni Jan 30 '22 at 14:23