Is a definite article THE needed in front of ordinal numbers in sentences like these:
4th case can be used with or without prepositions. If you are doing something, it’s likely this meaning will need to be expressed in 4th case. This is a preposition that can only go with 2nd case. The nouns and adjectives in the sentence will require 2nd case.
Are ordinal numbers always preceded with THE or are there any exceptions?
Answer
In English "the" is not required before ordinal numbers. For example:
"A 1st place winner is allowed to race in the next heat."
In fact, often no articles are present before noun phrases. This is referred to as "zero articles". I have listed several links describing zero articles at the end of this post.
From the Wikipedia article (listed below)
The zero article is also used in instructions and manuals. In such cases, the references in the text are all definite, and thus no distinction between definite and indefinite has to be made.
I believe this is relevant to the question asked as the original question sounds like instructions on how to use 2nd and 4th cases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-marking_in_English#Zero_article
https://www.thoughtco.com/zero-article-grammar-1692619
https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/determiners-zero-article.htm
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