Re: Probability of Article Replacement?
| From: | Doug Dee <amateurlinguist@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, March 2, 2003, 0:29 |
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In a message dated 2/25/2003 2:35:42 PM Eastern Standard Time,
jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM writes:
> Andreas Johansson scripsit:
>
> > How probable is it for a language that has a definite article to replace
> it
> > with a form derived from a demonstrative? Are any such examples known
> from
> > real-world languages?
>
> What little I know of the subject says that languages sometimes acquire
> definite articles, but don't discard or replace them.
>
The book _Definiteness_ by Christopher Lyons notes that langauges can lose
definite articles as well as gain them. Sometimes, the article expands in
use until it's used with essentially all nouns in essentially all
environments, so that it no longer carries any meaning of definiteness, and
instead serves merely as a marker of nounness (or as a gender marker if the
definite article distingished gender).
A new definite article can emerge after the old one is lost, or _before_ the
old one is lost, leading to competing/coexisting definite articles in the
language. The author says "The Scandinavian languages, in which a free-form
article was introduced at some stage to complement or double an existing
affixal article, illustrate this well."
Has anyone ever claimed that definite articles _can't_ be lost? Markers of
tense, number, person, gender etc. etc. can all be lost. Why would
definiteness be an exception?
Doug
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