Re: "The" and possessives

--- Muke Tever <alrivera@...>
> wrote:
>>===== Original Message From tom@wolframite.net =====
>>>If I wanted to say the 'the' version without the definite article, I'd use a
>>>pronoun:  "the year minus its nineteen".  I think that one isn't ambiguous
>>>because 1977 as a value isn't likely to have that kind of possession
>ascribed
>>>to it.
>>
>>   Indeed - but you haven't made "nineteen" indefinite by using "its". A
>>possessive makes a word definite just as the word "the" does. After all, if
>>you say "her car" you are still implying that there is just one car to which
>>you are referring.
>
>Now, I didn't say I wanted to make it _indefinite_, I said I wanted to say it
>without the definite article. ;p   What I had in mind (but apparently decided
>not to put in the message) was how I might express that kind of construction
>in a language without a definite article.
Well... in this example, say "without" the 19 in contrast to "minus" the nineteen,
which is in any case really just a technical term borrowed to lend a slight
amount of interest to the sentence.
In general, some languages change the whole construction to express definiteness
in the absence of articles. I don't know Finnish but I have a Teach-yourself
book and it has this example:

Kukka on pöydällä - flower is table-on - The flower is on the table.
Pöydällä on kukka - table-on is flower - A flower is on the table.

==

   Tom Pullman

"Dochuala as borb nad légha."

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