From: "Tom Pullman" <tom@...>
> --- 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.
Perhaps, but as I already mentioned elsewhere, I read the same meaning of
"minus" (take something away) in both sentences. What I have is "1,977" (a
quantity) in contrast to "nineteen seventy-seven" (the name of the
quantity). "Take 19 away" from the first gives you 1,958; "take 19 away"
from the second gives you "77".
*Muke!