Re: definite/indefinite articles

Hello,

> I believe there's a northern russian dialect (more than a
> dialect, very
> much drifted from the standard) which uses a suffix (or infix?) to
> express definiteness which comes immediately before the noun ending
> which indicates number and case.
Yes, this is true of some Arkhangel'sk dialects - the suffixes are, for
masc, fem and neut, respectively, -ot, -ta, and -to, as in _xozyain-ot_,
_xozyaika-ta_ etc. This isn't much different from the Bulgarian, only
Bulgarian has virtually no case inflections and distributes the articles
regardless of gender (so 'the father' is _bashtata_ rather than
*_basht(a)øt_).

The Arkhangel'sk dialects are far removed from the standard (in
phonetics as well as in morphology and syntax - for instance, the
passive is 'incomplete' (I don't know the English - the patient remains
in the accusative when the verb is passivized)), but they have never had
anything like an independent literary tradition, and they are
comprehensible.

Pavel
--
Pavel Iosad               pavel_iosad@mail.ru

Is mall a mharcaicheas am fear a bheachdaicheas
                 --Scottish proverb

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