Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Definiteness

From:Mr Veoler <veoler@...>
Date:Sunday, March 2, 2008, 11:13
One thing I have had in mind to ask: What about definiteness?

The definite article, and a generic demonstrative - what's the difference?

Is an indefinite noun/nominal phrase hypernymous to the definite counterpart?
(I got this thought when I tried to translate a noun without articles, and
found that "a house" could be the same house as referred to in "the house".
Since that time I use the unmarked noun "both" for the indefinite mode and the
"unknown definiteness"... I mean: I don't have a marked indefinite article.)

Generally, my conlang have the unmarked noun to be "indefinite" in the broader
sense, and might be used for what in English is definite, if the context is
enough. And then I have two marked articles: one for definiteness, used when
you want to make it explicitly definite, as a generic demonstrative, and the
second article for genericness (as in Latejami).

--
Veoler

Reply

Paul Bennett <paul.w.bennett@...>