Re: Conlang Change and The Definite Article

> (Blue or one quotes Jim)
>> (Green or two quotes Doug)
>> In looking at VSO langs, I have yet to see one that doesn't have the
>> definite article.  So in moving Skerre to VSO, I figured I should add the
>> definite article.  However, with my beloved reduplicative plural prefix,
>> the
>> article becomes a problem, because it becomes confusing between, ta tansko
>> (the race), and tatansko (races).  Looking at possible solutions to my
>> problem, I'm pondering adding a suffixing definite article.  Does this
>> seem
>> natural, especially for a VSO lang?
>> -Doug
>
> I didn't know that there was a connection between VSO word order and the use
> of definite articles.
I've never seen anything relating the two in the typology literature.  This
is a conclusion drawn from data.
> How many VSO languages have you studied?
None very formally.  However of late, I've been examining Tongan and other
Polynesian languages, Tzotzil (which I see in Crystal 1987 is VOS) and other
Mayan languages, and occasionally peaks at a Celtic language and Semitic
languages.  Among all the languages that I've examined among this families
(Tongan, Maori, Samoan, Tzotzil, Mam, Welsh, Breton, Hebrew, and Arabic) all
have definite articles (some, but not all, also have the indefinite
article).  Thinking about it, it's possible that Zapotec (VSO) might not
have a definite article (but I think it has an indefinite one), but I don't
remember.  Most of my data is from Campbell 1994 (The Concise Compendium of
the World's Languages) or Campbell 1991 (The Compendium of the World's
Language--Campbell's 1994's big brother with more languages).
> Approximately how many VSO languages are there all told?
According to Crystal (1987) about 10-15% of the world's languages are VSO.
Hopefully this is not part of the 73% of statistics that are made up on the
spot. :-)
> Are you sure that there is a VSO-definite article connection in natural
>languages?
Not sure at all.  As I said above, it is merely I tendency I noticed--I'm
not sure if it's universal or what kind of connection there is, because
certainly other word-orders have the definite article, too (Basque-SOV,
English-SVO, just as examples).

My current solution to my above problem has been to retain ta as the
definite article (for the absolutive case-the other cases don't have this
problem).  In instances like ta tansko and tatansko, the accent makes a
difference.  Following rules that are somewhat in existence already, ta
tansko is ta tánsko (accent is on tan), while tatansko is tátansko (accent
on ta).  This seems to have pacified me for the time being--we'll see if
this holds.
-Doug