Re: No pronoun, no article

In a message dated 10/21/2003 2:41:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
ray.brown@FREEUK.COM writes:


>It's curious that Couturat & Leau say this about Volapük's articles.  I
>wonder if any
>other conlanger more light on this mystery.  It's clear they were not
>there in
>Schleyer's original version.


It's all a puzzle to me.

Judging from Libert's book, it appears that Libert believes that C&L are
describing the original version of Volapuk, with articles, and that an
article-less version was later approved at a Volapuk Congress in 1887, and this
article-less version was described by C.E. Sprague in 1888 in _The Hand-Book of
Volapuk_.  Either Libert or C&L may be confused about which version is which.

Libert says that C&L say the articles aren't much used. (Or at least I think
that's what they say; Libert quotes them in untranslated French).  I might
speculate that perhaps Volapuk didn't actually have articles, but perhaps did
have a demonstrative "et" and a numeral "un," and perhaps either Schleyer or some
later writer said that these could be pressed into service as articles if one
really felt the need in a literal translation, and maybe this concession has
somehow mutated into the statement that "Volapuk has articles" as authors
quote one another over the years.

But I'm just guessing.

Doug

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