Re: "the"

Muke Tever <alrivera@...> wrote:

>Sounds kind of like Jadúno's "titular article" (dunno what the regular term
>might be, I made that one up) 'ja'.
>The use is more where definiteness is assumed.  Matt there, talking about
>himself, is definite and can use 'the' without introduction.  I think it's the
>same 'the' as in "The Lord is my shepherd" and "I'm on the World Wide Web"--at
>least, in Jadúno it is.

That's exactly like Draseléq "unique singular"! (Irina also
mentioned something with this name in Thunder Rock speech).
Except Draseléq marks it with a suffix; it works exactly
like a number mark, though it not only assumes singular,
but also definiteness (even without previous reference).
The use is sometimes idiomatical. Some examples OTTOMH:

    is 'moon' -- Isis 'the Moon' (especially personified)
    dandvar 'queen' -- Díniasses Dandvris 'the Queen of Stars'
    gas 'jewel' -- Qail Gasis 'The Red Jewel' (a leaflet!)

There's no unique plural -- you have to use group plural for
that, which can really refer to a unique group, or just to
a group of tightly bound things you and your speaker know
(like 'the mountains' [the ones you're looking at],
'my hands', 'the Eight Provinces', etc.).


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/draseleq.html