Re: Spoken Thoughts ( My second, better formed, non crappy Language)

On Fri, Dec 29, 2000 at 03:46:55AM -0000, Eruanno none wrote:
> >Alternatively, just forget the article and use demonstratives instead.
> >The Sinitic languages (Chinese "dialects") and Malay/Indonesian don't have
> >articles, and they use demonstratives ("this" and "that") instead. My
> >conlang doesn't have articles either. IMNSHO, articles are cumbersome and
> >redundant (except perhaps they're forgiveable in Attic Greek, where they
> >are much more flexible than in English). Context usually makes it clear
> >the scope of your nouns anyway, so why bother? :-)
>
> Could you give me an example of demonstratives that could take the place of
> articles?
Well, it's hard to explain with English examples 'cos English
differentiates between the article and the demonstrative. But crudely
speaking, it's simply replacing, e.g., "the car" with "that car" or "this
car".

OK, maybe a few non-English examples might help:

Malay:  Saya nampak kereta. Kereta itu  biru.
        I    saw    car.    Car    that blue.
        "I saw (a) car. That (or the) car (is) blue."

Note that Malay attaches the demonstrative *after* the noun, so "kereta
itu" means "that car" although the literal word order is "car that".

Now a slightly more complex example, to show how the language works around
the lack of an article:

Malay:  Saya nampak kereta yang  dia mengatakan.
        I    saw    car    which he  talked-about
        "I saw (the) car that he talked about."

Here, no demonstrative is used; the phrase "yang dia mengatakan" suffices
to indicate that the noun "car" is being used in a specific sense (i.e.,
*the* car he talked about, not just any car). This is what I mean by
context making clear the scope of your nouns.

[*Note: I'm avoiding translating "yang" as "that" because it's strictly a
relative pronoun, not a demonstrative.]

In this particular case, Malay also allows the use of the demonstrative:

        Saya nampak kereta yang  dia mengatakan   itu.
        I    saw    car    which he  talked-about that
        "I saw *that* car which he talked about."

(In case you've trouble parsing this one, the demonstrative "itu" has
rather low precedence, and *follows* noun-modifying phrases. So in this
case, "itu" is modifying "kereta", although there's a sub-clause stuck
between them.)

> And explain why Greek articles are forgivable...
[snip]

Because originally, the Greek articles were personal pronouns, and in
Attic Greek, they still play that role sometimes. This makes for neat
elisions, e.g.:

1)      ho       en  te:_i   oikia_i anthropos
        the      in  the     house   man
        masc/NOM     fem/DAT fem/DAT masc/NOM
        "The man in the house", literally, "the in the house man".
        [I'm using /:/ for long vowels and /_i/ for iota subscript, sorry,
         I forgot the convention people use here :-P]

This can be shortened to:

2)      ho       en te:_i   oikia_i
        the      in the     house
        masc/NOM    fem/DAT fem/DAT
        "The [man] in the house".

Since the Greek article is inflected for gender, number, and case, the
word "anthropos" is completely redundant and can be dropped. So, if you
wanted to say "The *men* in the house", it'd be:
        hoi       en te:_i   oikia_i
        the(plur) in the     house
        masc/NOM     fem/DAT fem/DAT
        "The(plural) [men] in the house".

It gets more fun when you do this with participles.
3) Long-winded version (no participles):
        blepw       ton      anthropon hos      paideuei.
        I-saw       the      man       who      is-teaching.
        v/1stperson masc/ACC masc/ACC  masc/NOM v/3rdperson
        "I saw the man who is teaching."

4) Replace the relative subclause with participle:
        blepw       ton      anthropon paideuonton.
        I-saw       the      man       teaching
        v/1stperson masc/ACC masc/ACC  ptcple/ACC
        "I saw the teaching man".

5) Elide "anthropos":
        blepw       ton      paideuonton.
        I-saw       the      teaching
        v/1stperson masc/ACC ptcple/ACC
        "I saw the teaching [man]."

(5) is possible because the article fully inflected for gender, number and
case, so it already carries all the information the redundant word
"anthropos" would have carried. Together with the participle, it tells you
everything the original sentence tells you about the man. Not to mention
the Greek participle is an incredibly flexible thing -- it's inflected for
aspect, tense, and mood, etc., so a little word can carry a LOT of
meaning: for example, we can use a perfective participle:
        blepw       ton      pepaideumenon.
        I-saw       the      having-taught
        v/1stperson masc/ACC ptcple/perf/ACC
        "I saw the having-taught [man]" (i.e., the man has just completed
        his teaching.)

In English, we would've needed to phrase this as "I saw the man who has
just finished teaching": 9 words, compared to a mere 3 words in Greek. (Or
compare to the longer, 5-word Greek version (3), where the article isn't
used in this way.)

If this isn't reason enough to justify the existence of the Greek article,
I don't know what is :-)


T

--
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
-- Sammy