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Re: Enclitic Articles

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Friday, January 12, 2007, 20:37
Quoting Eric Christopherson <rakko@...>:

> On Jan 11, 2007, at 5:11 PM, daniel prohaska wrote: > > > Many languages develop their articles from older demonstratives. > > Take Latin > > for example, with a relatively free syntax, allowed for a position > > before or > > after the noun it describes, e.g.: <ille lupus> or <lupus ille> > > > > This variation in syntax is reflected in the modern Romance > > languages, e.g. > > Italian <il lupo> vs. Romanian <lupul>. > > And Romanian apparently put its articles at the end because other > languages in the Balkan sprachbund, to which it belongs, have them > after nouns. (But note that Greek, which also belongs to that > sprachbund, puts its articles before nouns.) > > Besides Romanian, Aramaic has an enclitic definite article. I'm not > sure where it came from.
The Scandinavian languages have enclitic definite articles like -inn, -en, -et, -na, also derived from demonstratives. They coöccur in somewhat complex patterns with prepostioned definite articles à la English or French. Andreas