Hey,

I don't think there is a grammatical rule, or something like that, but I've been wondering why in English you sometimes omit articles before countable nouns[chance, choice, and so on] after the preposition "of".

A game of chance.
The palace of chance.
Architectures of chance.

A game of choice.
The something of choice.

I can't think of better examples right now, but as you can see, even though the nouns are countable and in the singular forms, there are no articles after the preposition "of".

There is one more example I can think of
"Dawn is the time of day when the Sun rises."

Any tips or explanations?
(If you know other singular countable words that take no article after prepositions, feel free to post them.)

@ErialC

Great question! I had to do some research.

Those few nouns in your examples are tricky because they can be countable or uncountable depending on their usage. The omission of articles doesn't always have to occur after "of"; sentences with the omission can be phrased differently.

1) Chance
Countable: You have three chances.
Uncountable: A game of chance. / I won by chance.
(More examples and definitions here: http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/defin...)

2) Choice
Countable: You have three choices.
Uncountable: I have no choice. / I don't have much choice.
(http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/defin...)

3) Day
Countable: There are seven days in a week.
Uncountable: Time of day / All day long.
(http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/defin...)

More examples:

• Benefit
Studying everyday is of benefit to us. / It is to our benefit to study everyday.

• Reason
I have reason to believe him.

• Room
There is room for improvement.

• Time
Do you have time to do this?