Re: CHAT: Definite/Indefinite Article Distinction

Jake X wrote:
>Arthaey,
>
>Not necessarily at all. Articles are a strange beast. I would generalize
>(and I'm sure someone will catch me on this, I don't really know enough
>Romance languages to make this assumption), that all romance languages
>which
>have a definate article also have an indefinate. The reverse is probably
>safer (that indefinate depends on definate), because while with a "the"
>word, a language can keep the indefinate unmarked; there is no reason to
>distiguish an indefinate without a definate. (For example, a language like
>Esperanto would just say "la boato" or "boato," while German says "das
>Boot"
>and "ein Boot" (wait, is Boot das? it's been too long....)
The Germanic languages are pretty freeky in this regard - definite articles
in both numbers, but the indefinite ones only show up in the singular. What
other languages with this lack of symmetry are there?

                                                     Andreas

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