Re: Articles and the Givenness Hierarchy

Roger wrote:
<<
Very interesting, particularly so for those who've had experience with
languages without real def/indef. articles (Indonesian in my case-- I
wonder
how Russian works in this respect.)
 >>

Coincidentally, Russian was one of the non-English languages
they did:

1 through 3: ø NP
4: eto NP, to NP
5: eto, to (and something they call ON--any ideas what it could be?
Emphasized "on"?)
6: ø, on (i.e., pronoun)

(Here the o-slashes mean "null".)

Roger continues:
<<
One thing that has stuck in my mind from
Indo. and relatives: a possessed form is _by its very nature_ definite;
so
are personal names.
 >>

One interesting thing that I learned from a grad. student who
only stayed in the department one quarter is that it seems that
possessees do not *have* to be definite.  Obviously, with something
like "his dog", there's a definite dog in mind, but consider examples
like the following:

(a) John broke his finger.  (Which finger?)
(b) Someone broke John's leg.  (Which leg?)

In both (a) and (b), it would be silly to assume that John had just
one finger and just one leg.  At the same time, though, it's by
no means ridiculous to have a conversation like the one below:

A: Did you hear?  John broke his finger.
B: Really!  Which one?
A: I don't know; I just heard he broke one.

Another interesting thing with possessives is the extent to
which the hearer will accommodate a possessive, but won't
accommodate, say, the definite article.  Consider the following:

(a) The architect had a stroke.
(b) My uncle had a stroke.

Under no circumstances could you start off a conversation with
(a) when the hearer doesn't know which architect you're talking
about.  However, it's perfectly fine to start off a conversation
with (b) even if the hearer has no idea that you even have an
uncle.

Anyway, one thing to note about the givenness hierarchy is
that possessives don't appear *anywhere*.  They cleverly side-stepped
that issue completely.

ObConlang, one of my languages, Kamakawi, does have articles, in a
sense,
so I wanted to figure out how they work.  This is how I think
they work:

(1-2) ø NP
(3-4) e NP
(5) e NP iko, e NP ipe
(6) amo (pronoun)

-David
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"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
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-Jim Morrison

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