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The sentence La mia madre è una segretaria has been marked wrong, but I don't understand why. I thought that, when describing a single family member, the article is optional, so using both la and mia should be correct.
Apparently it's not the case. What am I missing here?
In Italian the article is not used with single persons, with respect to family names, and the possessive adjectives, if there's no further specification:
There is no hard and fast rule for the article when a specification is used, though, so also tuo fratello minore and mio zio d'America can be used. The important aspect is that without specification the article is refused.
This doesn't apply to other living beings, persons or not: one says il mio cane and never mio cane.
You can surely find the article used in old texts; for instance, the old translation of John's Gospel had (19:26-27, CEI/Bibbia di Gerusalemme)
26Gesù allora, vedendo la madre e lì accanto a lei il discepolo che egli amava, disse alla madre: «Donna, ecco il tuo figlio!». 27Poi disse al discepolo: «Ecco la tua madre!». E da quel momento il discepolo la prese nella sua casa.
The most recent translation (Nuova Riveduta) has instead
26Gesù dunque, vedendo sua madre e presso di lei il discepolo che egli amava, disse a sua madre: «Donna, ecco tuo figlio!» 27Poi disse al discepolo: «Ecco tua madre!» E da quel momento, il discepolo la prese in casa sua.
The article in the old version is at least antiquate.
There are exceptions: mamma and babbo/papà tend to attract the article and la mia mamma, il mio papà are frequently heard. Actually il mio babbo is the only used form and mio babbo would be deemed incorrect. Whether adding the article with mamma or papà depends on regional background: personally I'd never say la mia mamma or il mio papà.
