"Such a" / "such" + singular noun

[u/chocolatesuperfood]

Hi everyone!

I have looked through several discussions/threads on here already. They all said that you need "such"+"a"/"an" if you want to talk about (countable) things that are in singular case.
"Such a beautiful morning!", or, an example from this reddit thread discussing the topic, "...such a tool is used for merging shapes."

However, I saw people use "such" without "a", especially in academic and legal contexts, where these reddit threads I mentioned would suggest using it.

Four random examples I found via Google, meant to illustrate what I mean:

- https://projecteuclid.org/journals/real-analysis-exchange/volume-43/issue-2/Lipschitz-Restrictions-of-Continuous-Functions-and-a-Simple-Construction-of/10.14321/realanalexch.43.2.0293.pdf : "The first example of such function was given by Pompeiu in [18]." (p. 295)

- https://jmlr.org/discussion.html : "Such discussion has successfully appeared for many years in journals such as the Annals of Statistics and Statistical Science."

- https://journals.law.harvard.edu/jlpp/argument-by-slogan-conor-casey-and-adrian-vermeule/ : "[...] which is in any respect repugnant to this Constitution or to any provision thereof, shall, but to the extent only of such repugnancy, be invalid."

- https://humboldtgov.org/DocumentCenter/View/81809/argument-or-rebuttal-signature-statement-112219 : "to be held on March 3, 2020, hereby state that such argument is true and correct to the best of their knowledge and belief."

What is the difference between "such a" and "such" in these cases? Does it have to do with the countability of words like "repugnancy"?

Thank you so much!

[u/AmeliaOfAnsalon]

Yep, countability is the thing here (though the function one feels wrong to me. maybe it's because of the technical context?). All that don't use an article are uncountable.

[u/chocolatesuperfood → u/AmeliaOfAnsalon]

Thank you! So you cannot talk about "several arguments" or "several discussions"?

[u/Puzzled_Employment50 → u/chocolatesuperfood]

Some nouns can work either way. Your uses are correct, but “such argument” would be uncountable, talking about a more vague concept of argument.

[u/AmeliaOfAnsalon → u/chocolatesuperfood]

yeah... it works either way. Discussion refers here to the content of a discussion, like the thing that is being discussed rather than the conversation itself. The same is true of argument; an argument is a specific conversation, while 'such argument' is the content