Re: Article wierdness

On Sat, Sep 11, 2004 at 10:30:38AM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> Doug Dee scripsit:
>
> > If I recall my French correctly, the usual way to raise "Raise your
> > hand," is "Levez la main" literally "Raise the hand," even though
> > most of us have two hands, so that perhaps "Raise a hand" would seem
> > more logical.
>
> This is why I keep arguing that the French
/Spanish/Italian/etc

> "definite" article isn't
> really definite any more; it's been bleached of most of its definiteness
> and serves mostly as the default determiner, the one that applies when
> there is no specific reason to use anything else.
>
> English though is notable for its insistence on redundant possessive
> determiners:  "He put his hands in his pockets" is the only idiomatic
> way of saying that, even though it's obvious that people normally
> put their own hands in their own pockets.
This entire area is ripe with idiomatic differences.  For instance,
the Spanish for "The girls all washed their faces" is literally
"The girls all washed the face".  Note the singular, because each girl
has only one face.

-Marcos

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