"the"

John Cowan <jcowan@...> wrote
>Matt Pearson wrote:
>
>> Matt.
>> the (expatriate) gay Canadian
>
>After picking on Dirk's "anymore", I think it's time to pick
>on Matt's "the" above.  Just what does it mean?  There doesn't
>seem to be any definiteness here, unlike "The Gr[ae]y Wizard",
>for example.
[snip]
>From:    Matt Pearson <jmpearson@...>
>
>Perhaps "the X" in this case means "the individual out of some
>(perhaps unspecified) set of individuals who is identified or
>identifiable by virtue of being an X".  This seems like a natural
>metaphorical extension of the normal meaning of "the" from
>ordinary definite descriptions to epithets.
Sounds kind of like Jadúno's "titular article" (dunno what the regular term
might be, I made that one up) 'ja'.  I can't really call it a definite
article, as it isn't used to refer to old/definite information (I saw a dog.
The dog was ugly as muck.)

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.

>From:    Matt Pearson <jmpearson@...>
>That seems to get at the function
>of medieval epithets, used to distinguish "John the
>baker" from "John the tanner" and "John the bald".
One gets an occupational epithet in Jadúno, called a "nóunaijamo", or Jam name
(that's a Spanishish /xam/, not Englishish jelly). This is from 'ja' titular
article + 'mi' agent marker. "Jamchérlo" for example, meaning the Teacher or
the Student, is the modern version of the jam-name of the concultural creator
of Kaðuhhan.

And I'm late for work!

     *Muke!

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