Articles, presence and lack thereof

From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Fri Dec 26 1997 - 06:10:46 EST


Ben Crick wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
I just wonder how on earth the Romans and the
Russians ever manage to understand the right meaning of anything, when
they can communicate quite happily without any articles at all!
>>>>>>>>>>>>

I assume that Ben is being humorous here so please note that my following
comments are not directed at him. This subject comes up now and then. I have a
simple "structuralist" formula for dealing with the problem:

Articles,
the languages that have 'em need 'em
the languages that don't have 'em don't need 'em.

*****
There was a high school senior (honors student) in southern California who
always rode a motorcycle because he didn't want to raise the funds to pay for
a car. When his father finally gave him an old Chevy to drive when it rained,
the first thing the honors student did was take off two of the wheels. His
motor cycle only needed two wheels so it was pretty obvious that the chevy had
an excess of wheels. This fellow went on to get his PhD at USC.
*****

One simple example in K. Greek is the ability to distinguish the
circumstantial participle from the attributive participle. This distinction is
marked (typically) by the presence or absence of the article. I would assume
that Latin has a different method of marking this distinction and gets by
without the article because the function of the participle is marked in a
different manner.

-- 
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 
Seahurst WA 98062


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