Re: Probability of Article Replacement?

I wrote:
>Nik Taylor wrote:
>>Stephen Mulraney wrote:
>> > There's more to it than that; "Describing Morphosyntax" at one point
>> > (p266) mentions how some languages mark "discourse referentiality",
>> > which is when a newly-introduced item in discourse is "destined to
>> > feature" in the narrative. He then goes on to reference Wright and
>>Givon
>> > (1987), saying that they "have shown that the demonstrative _this_
>> > in spoken English is, among other things, an indicator of discourse
>> > referentiality.
>>
>>Yeah, I realize that, and, in fact, it inspired me to create an article
>>with just that meaning for Tevets, a descendant of Uatakassi.  At any
>>rate, it does appear to be the creation of a new article which has a
>>similar meaning to the indefinite article.  The colloquial use of "that"
>>is also not quite the same as "the", altho I'm not sure what the exact
>>difference is.  Anyways, by a rather broad definition, English could be
>>said to have acquired two new articles, making a fourway distinction,
>>and it seems plausible to me that it could be resimplified at some
>>future point, perhaps losing one or more of the original articles.
>>
>>So, returning to Andreas' language, maybe there might've been a time
>>when both the old and the new definite articles coexisted with somewhat
>>different meanings, before being simplified to just one article.
>
>At an lecture in optimality theory (the mathematical kind) today, I come up
>with possible solution somewhat similar to this, which involves a kind of
>chain-shift; The old definite article eventually _ez(a)_ becomes so
>widespread that speakers start using the demonstrative _ha_ "this" as a
>kind
>of "emphatic" definite article, and eventually the development reaches the
>point where _ez_ is essentially "morphemic sugar" (as someone, to
>Christophe's annoyance, described French le/la/les), and _ha_ is required
>to
>mark definiteness. Essentially, _ez_ would've turned into a indefinite
>article and _ha_ to the definite one (wondrously confusing to speakers of
>related languages that retains derivatives of _eza_ as definite articles),
>with _ha_ as the new definite article. _Ha_ meaning "this" would be
>differentiated by expansion to _ha dza_ "this one" and _ha dze:n_ "these
>many", which'd then contract to _hazd_ and _hazden_, which later looks like
>_hazd_ with the regular pl ending _-(e)n_. Is a development of this kind
>plausible?
>
Do I spot rogue metathesis here? _Hazd_ and _hazden_ should be _hadz_ and
_hadzen_.


      Andreas

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