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Re: "The" and possessives

From:Muke Tever <alrivera@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 22, 2001, 18:08
>===== 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. *Muke!