Re: Probability of Article Replacement?

Peter Bleackley wrote:
> Are there any languages that mark a definite/indefinite distinction by
> means other than articles? I've considered using inflections or word order
> to mark it in various conlangs. I suppose there's the wa/ga distinction in
> Japanese, but that's restricting a particular grammatical role (the topic)
> to definite things, rather than marking definitiveness as such.
I believe Swedish uses -en as a definite 'article', so 'boken' means
'the book'. People from the land of IKEA may help you better (my sister
has a job at a soon-to-open IKEA. Observations: IKEA is incredibly
Swedish. Americans pronounce IKEA ick-aya (we say eye-kear, rhymes with
'idea', and her explanation for the Swedish pronunciation is 'they just
talk fast'). IKEA is incredibly Swedish. Victorian anti-smoking laws
means that the Staff Smoking Lounge is actually a Staff Internet Lounge.
IKEA is incredibly Swedish. (This particular?) IKEA promotes Staff (and
customers) coming in via public transport. IKEA is incredibly Swedish).

Tristan.

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