Omission of the indefinite article to eliminate ambiguity [duplicate]

Solution 1:

Bare Coordination

This phenomenon is one that is not at all well understood, and also one which is currently the subject of much academic research. It is an example of Bare Coordination. This is when coordinated noun phrases (NPs) which we would otherwise expect to take a determiner of some description appear "bare" with no determiner or article at all. By coordinated, we mean that they appear in phrases using the coordinators and, or, but and so forth (some people call coordinators coordinating conjunctions). The reason that they seem to be able to appear like this is because they are in such coordinations.

Here are some more examples:

• A black cat and a brown dog were fighting in the street. Cat and dog were equally filthy.
• Are you man or mouse?
• I had pen and paper ready to make notes.
• Mother and child were said to be recovering well.
• He appeared to be millionaire and homeless vagabond at the same time.
• Nothing is so sacred as love between husband and wife.

Bare Coordination versus Bare Role NPs

Notice that these aren't bare role NP's which specify a unique role. Bare role NPs can occur freely as Predicative Complements without a determiner. The nouns in these coordinations cannot appear bare when not in a coordination:

Bare role NP

• He was Managing Director at Boots.
• Who's going to be Best Man?
• We elected her treasurer.

Nouns from the Bare Coordinations

• *He was millionaire. (ungrammatical)
• *He used to be cat. (ungrammatical)
• *Are you mouse? (ungrammatical)
• *She was wife. (ungrammatical)

Notice as well that bare role NP's can only function as Predicative Complements. However, bare co-ordinations can appear freely in Subject or Object function:

Bare Coordination:

• Father and son came to see me. (Subject)
• We punished licensee and client together for the misdemeanour. (Direct Object)

Bare Role NP

• *Chief executive was an arse. (Subject, ungrammatical)
• *I punched Managing Director. (Object, ungrammatical)

Definiteness

Notice as well from the first group of examples, that it makes no difference whether the noun phrases are semantically definite or indefinite. In man or mouse both man and mouse are generic and don't refer to a or the man, or the mouse. In contrast, in Both husband and wife are recovering well, the husband and the wife are very specific, definite people. The fact that a noun phrase is in a bare coordination construction doesn't seem to depend on whether they are semantically definite or indefinite. Nobody knows why these bare noun phrases can occur in these coordinations. There is so much that we still don't know about language. Intriguing, isn't it!

Further reading

^{Here's a couple of articles on bare coordination:}

^{- Heycock and Zamparelli: Coordinated Bare Definites}

^{- Bare_coordination_the_semantic_shift}

Many thanks to FumbleFingers for the helpful comment

Solution 2:

I think that the main reason why there is no article in the expression "husband and wife" is because it is an idiomatic one which represents an emblematic duality that has been mentioned for centuries. Other examples are : "cat and dog" or "body and soul" for instance:

From the OED:

Husband:

• A man joined to a woman by marriage. Correlative of wife.

  • 1765 Blackstone Comm. I. xv. (1809) 442 By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law.

From Etymonline:

• Old English husbonda "male head of a household, master of a house, householder," probably from Old Norse husbondi "master of the house," literally "house-dweller." Beginning late 13c. it replaced Old English wer as "married man (in relation to his wife)" and became the companion word of wife, a sad loss for English poetry.

Ngram: husband and wife, any husband and any wife, a husband and a wife, husbands and wives, a husband and wife.

Note also the adjectival usage of "husband-wife":

• pertaining to or involving a husband and his wife.

  • 1956 J. M. Mogey Family & Neighbourhood 61 ‘My wife trusts me’ indicates excellent husband–wife adjustment.

  • 1959 Encounter July 73/1 [This book] is by a husband–wife duet of French journalists.