Re: articles

In a message dated 1/30/2005 12:09:17 PM Eastern Standard Time,
salut_vous_autre@HOTMAIL.COM writes:

>But, more I read grammars of other languages, more I realize that a lot of
>them don't have articles
>Is it something rare in languages?
>Are there only families of languages that use them?
>It tought it could be only the IE languages but arabic has "el" and basque
has the suffix "-a"

>Had "el" and "-a" been borrowed from an IE language?

>I'd like to know if there are only some places in the worlds where languages
>possess articles and also if the majority does or doesn't use articles
>I searched and all languages I found wich have one or two articles are IE or
>are situated near of some IE languages
According to _Definiteness_ by Christopher Lyons (Cambridge U. Press, 1999),
only a minority of languages have articles, but it's "not a small minority,"
and certainly not limited to IE.  Lakhota (North America) has articles, and
other people on this list have mentioned Semitic.  (Others have also pointed out
that articles were apparently not present in PIE, but have been innovated in
some of its descendants.)

It doesn't seem common for the actual form of an article to be borrowed, but
Lyons notes that languages with articles tend to clump in certain geographical
areas, suggesting that the idea of having articles diffuses from language to
language, but the articles are then made from materials already in the
language (generally demonstratives).

He notes that "The greatest concentration of languages marking definiteness
today is in Western Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean."  In large
region of the Mddle East and Central Asia, definiteness is generally marked
only on direct objects.  Definiteness marking is almost absent in Australia and
South America.

Doug

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