Re: articles

RRay Brown wrote at 2005-01-31 18:45:19 (+0000)

 > On Sunday, January 30, 2005, at 09:10 , Tim May wrote:
 >
 > > Mark J. Reed wrote at 2005-01-30 14:20:03 (-0500)
 > >> On Sun, Jan 30, 2005 at 01:42:20PM -0500, Doug Dee wrote:
 > >>> According to _Definiteness_ by Christopher Lyons (Cambridge U. Press,
 > >>> 1999),
 > >>
 > >> Such a clunky word.  I think we should call it something else,
 > >> linguistic convention be damned.  Maybe "definity".
 > >> :)
 > >>
 > >
 > > I have a strong personal feeling that "definacy"* ought to be a
 > > possible formation with that sense,
 >
 > Ach!!! How can an adjective terminating in -ite (from a Latin perfect
 > participle -i:tus) match up with a noun ending in -acy (<-- a:tium)?
 >
 > Clunky definiteness may be, but it is a perfectly well-formed English
 > derivative from _definite_. *definacy is not well-formed from any point of
 > view.

It's well formed from the point of view of a synchronic analysis of my
English, in which "definite" and *"definate" would be homophonous, and
there's a large class of -/@t/ -> -/@si/ derivations with the desired
semantics from which to analogize.