Re: Greenberg's universals

From: "Tim Smith"

> This brings up a point that I've wondered about for some time.  Are there
> any natlangs that have indefinite articles but no definite ones?  In other
> words, where an unmarked NP is interpreted as definite, and has to be
> marked in some way to make it indefinite?  I've never heard of this, but
> intuitively it seems to make sense, since indefinite NPs are generally
ones
> that are being introduced into the discourse for the first time, so you'd
> think that they might require some device to call attention to them.
Géarthnuns is not a natlang, of course, and I'm bending your question a
little bit but....

All nouns save proper nouns in Géarthnuns must be marked with some sort of
article. I think what happened (in real time) was that general class
statements like, "Les lions sont mammifères." got expanded so that any old
general article-less noun in English (or other lang) took on the definite
article to modify it. As a result, even the most generic statements took on
the definite article, so I think it (the def. art.) has a little less force
than its IE/Euro counterparts. Indefinite articles, on the other hand, in my
mind, seem almost to have *more* emphasis because they emphasize *a* book or
*some* books as opposed to any ol' book, or "books". The indefinite article
is also indistinguishable from the French partitive "de" construction, so
"se deths" could mean "a beer", "une bière" (as in "Gimme a beer" where the
measure is understood [could be a glass, a bottle, depending on context]) or
"some beer", "de la bière"; "söi pitsalats" could be "a pizza" or "some
pizza". It's a weird, kind of counter-intuitive development of the language
which I have been grappling with, but Géarthnuns is what it is...who am I to
intervene? :)

Kou