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Re: "the"

From:FFlores <fflores@...>
Date:Saturday, March 4, 2000, 13:43
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