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Re: Unmarked definiteness

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Tuesday, August 24, 2004, 18:16
Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>> Now, while it's not hard to see how this state of affairs came about - >> phonetic >> change simply ate the definite marker alive, but only snatched a leg >> from the >> indefinite one - but nonetheless seems remarkable; normally, we'd >> expect the >> indefinite to be the less marked form, wouldn't we? Is there any other >> languages which do the same? > > > As we say: ANADEW -- perhaps also AONADEW: AnOther Natlang Alraedy Did > it Even Worse?
I must have been tired. I wanted to point out that Hindi, which normally doesn't mark definiteness can optionally mark an NP as indefinite with the numeral _ek_ 'one'. /BP 8^) -- B.Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! (Tacitus)