Re: Proto-Semitic (was Re: markjjones@HOTMAIL.COM)

On Mar 12, 2005, at 9:29 PM, Chris Bates wrote:
>> There is a universal phenomenon, where sometimes definite articles
>> lose
>> their power to definitize.  Because of this there are those who claim
>> that what is today an indefinite article (Arabic |tanwiin| -n,
>> Akkadian
>> -m) once was a definite article.
> I've never seen an example of a definite article turning into an
> indefinite article (I don't speak Arabic though). It's true that
> definite articles often lose their definiteness, but this isn't the
> same
> as turning into an indefinite article. The tendency in many languages
> is
> for usage to spread until the article indicates specificality rather
> than definiteness and from there turn into a general NP marker. At this
> point it covers both indefinite and definite meaning, but it hasn't
> turned into an indefinite article.
But then what if a new definite article develops, from a deictic or a
pronoun or whatever?  Then the old definite article might become
understood as an indefinite article.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "quit it with the damn schwa already! i hate phonetics!"
      - my friend e
        (back when we took intro to linguistics together)

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