Re: Arabo-Romance (was Re: Arabic transliteration)

John Cowan <jcowan@...> writes:

> > In Spanish, feminine
> > words beginning with a stressed 'a' take *for phonetic reasons only* the
> > article |el| instead of |la|
And of course, the plural form is the expected one: |las aguas|.
BTW, the same rule goes for the indefinite article: |un agua| ~ |unas aguas|.

> That reminds me: what is the story with el azucar/la azucar?  I have
> actually found a web page that says:
>
>         La azucar en la sangre, a un nivel mas de 150 mg/dl, se le
>         llama hiperglucemia.  Cuando hay una infeccion dental, se le
>         puede subir el azucar a la sangre.
The first instance is a mistake. |Azúcar| is a feminine noun that
follows the general rule. Looks like this web page is a rather coarse
translation from other language, or else the writer has a horrible
style.


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/nyh/index.html
  "The future is all around us, waiting, in moments
   of transition, to be born in moments of revelation.
   No one knows the shape of that future or where it
   will take us. We know only that it is always born
   in pain."  -- G'Kar quoting G'Quon, in "Babylon 5"

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