Re: Probability of Article Replacement?

On Tuesday 25 February 2003 9:33 pm, John Cowan wrote:
> Joe scripsit:
> > Essential? Articles serve no essential purpose in a language.  They
> > clarify, but a distinction is not neccesary.
>
> Essential within the language.  A person who does not know (implicitly)
> when to use "the" and when to use "a" does not fully know how to speak
> English.
Possibly not, but losing them would not make a huge impact.