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Re: CHAT: Definite/Indefinite Article Distinction

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Saturday, September 7, 2002, 16:07
Philip Newton scripsit:

> That reminds me... English is the only language I know (though that's > not saying much on a global scale) where the indefinite article "a, an" > is distinct from the numeral "one". > > They surely have the same origin, but they look different in > contemporary English.
Well, in Spanish the masculine indef. art. is "un" (as in "yo soy un hombre sincero"), but the masc. number is "uno" (as in "tres mujeres y uno hombre", a phrase I got by googling). In Dutch likewise "en mens" is "a person", but "een mens" is "one person". In editions of Wittgenstein, "ein" is written with an e-acute when it means "one". -- "No, John. I want formats that are actually John Cowan useful, rather than over-featured megaliths that http://www.ccil.org/~cowan address all questions by piling on ridiculous http://www.reutershealth.com internal links in forms which are hideously jcowan@reutershealth.com over-complex." --Simon St. Laurent on xml-dev

Replies

Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>
Roberto Suarez Soto <ask4it@...>