English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm sure about the 1st sentence, since I always see it at the opening credits of almost every film (a somebody's film).
But I'm not sure about the 2nd one, just it doesn't even look correct if I write it "A John's brother".
So, my question is as follows:
Is there any rule regulating usage of article before names like in my examples?
Thank you in advance!
The first example, "A George Lucas Film," isn't possessive like your second example is. It's using George Lucas's name like an adjective. So your two scenarios aren't the same.
In English, you would seldom to never say, "a John's brother." You might say, "a john's brother," which would be the brother of someone who frequented prostitutes. I suppose you could say, "a John's brother," if you meant the brother of some indefinite person named John. For example, "I don't know who he was. He said that he was a John's brother. Do you know someone named John? If so, he was his brother." However, even in that scenario, you would likely hear more people say, "of a John," rather than, "a John's." For example, "He said that he was the brother of a John, or was it a Sam? I can't remember. Do you know a John or a Sam?"
