Re: OT: Two language change questions

On Wed, 2008-10-29 at 04:11 +1100, Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:

> I guess I can agree that 'The indefinite article is a quantifier',
> but only incidentally.  The significant distinction between the
> definite and indefinite articles is just that: definiteness, or
> particularity.  When we say "a" or "some", we're not that
> particular about which particular individual(s) are taken;
> however, we have still identified the kind of thing it is or
> they are.
> Does it follow that an indefinite article is not also a deictic?
> Using an indefinite article, in whatever number, implies the
> _existence_ of a particular thing or things we're talking
> about - at least as a topic of discourse:
I wouldn't say that the indefinite article is *only* a quantifier: I'm
always suspicious of theorists who insist there is only one true way to
describe the phenomena! But *primarily* a quantifier, yes. After all, in
the vast majority of languages that have it, it is either identical to
or derived from the numeral "one": English, Turkish, Scandinavian,
Persian, etc. And if you have a definite article, its absence is
sufficient to show a noun is indefinite: Greek, Gaelic, Coptic, etc.

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