Re: Probability of Article Replacement?

At 15:59 26/02/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>John Cowan wrote:
> > An indefinite topic would be a contradiction in terms.
> >
>I think so too, but how about--
>
>(def.) "As for the elephant (we were discussing), it has a very small trunk"
>vs.
>
>(indef?) "As for elephants, they have trunks"-- though perhaps generic
>statements are a sub-class of definite, since this could be paraphrased "As
>for the elephant (in general), it has a trunk", so that "generic" = "the
>definite/defined class of all known examples of X"???
One of my conlangs, "Montanic", is isolating topic comment, and has no verb
"To be". I've always considered that in some contexts, topicality could
indicate "There is". Here is an example of glossed "Montanic" (I have no
vocab for this language yet, except for two particles, dha, [d^h&] which
indicates a topic, and dzety, [dzet^y] which refers back to the topic of
the sentence).

"man dha talk not much, marry, begin wander, have son three. son dha,
marry, wander still, each have son three."

There was a man who didn't talk much. He married, bagan to wander, and had
three sons. His sons married, continued their travels, and had three sons each.

Pete Bleackley