Re: Probability of Article Replacement?
| From: | taliesin the storyteller <taliesin@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Friday, February 28, 2003, 10:19 |
|---|
* Joe said on 2003-02-26 17:53:40 +0100
> On Wednesday 26 February 2003 9:36 am, Peter Bleackley wrote:
> > Are there any languages that mark a definite/indefinite distinction by
> > means other than articles?
>
> Norwegian, IIRC, does it with suffixes(And Romanian, AFAIK).
>
> sverde?(sword) > sverdet(the sword) is feminine
et sverd > sverdet (the sword) neuter
> sten > stenen(the stone) is masculine.
en stein > steinen (the stone) masculine
'sten', while an allowable spelling of 'stein', is... pretentious?
All the forms (well, not all the allowable alternates, I think I'll
make a webpage...):
| masculine | feminine | neuter |
---------+-+---------------+----------------+-----------------+
singular | (en) stein | (ei) hoppe | (et) sverd |
| steinen | hoppa | sverdet |
| den steinen | den hoppa | det sverdet |
---------+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
plural | (flere) steiner | (flere) hopper | (flere) sverd |
| (alle) steinene | (alle) hoppene | (alle) sverdene |
| de steinene | de hoppene | de sverdene |
---------+-----------------+----------------+-----------------+
Some dialects collapse masc. and fem. into masculine,
and what gender a word has also depends on dialect.
The third line shows the super-definite/double-definite/over-definite
construction, which among other things, should be used with adjectives:
de store steinene
*store steinene
stein: stone
hoppe: mare (female horse)
sverd: sword
en/ei/et: a/an
den/det: the
flere: several/more
alle: all
de: those, plural 'the'
store: big (plural)
t., Norwegian
Reply