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Re: Questions and Impressions of Basque

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Monday, August 30, 2004, 13:26
Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:

> I don't know if there are languages where the definitness is rather > explained by an affix on words than by a clitic.
Swedish does. Definiteness is normally indicated by a suffix on the noun; if one or more preceeding adjectives are present, you _additionally_ get a preceeding article à la in English or German. (Nominalized adjs just get the preceeding article.) Pretty conclusive evidence that we're talking an affix rather than a clitic is offered by the fact that it goes between the noun and any following modifiers; _toppen av berget_ "the peak of the mountain", lit "peak-DEF of mountain-DEF. It also fuses with the plural ending in many cases; _ett hus_ "a house", _hus_ "houses", _huset_ "the house", _husen_ "the houses". The situation is similar in the other Scandinavian languages. Andreas