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Usage of definite article in English
In some languages the noun is a specific gender and the definite article must Mach the gender of the noun. El toro = the bull; La tienda = the store. Etc. notice that in English the definite article is neutral.
I have a few very long term friends of fifty years or more who use the definite article in English. Intelligent men, one of whom has lived and worked in several countries. They are not ignorant but do not have formal education beyond high school and maintain strong family and social bonds that go back generations (I'm a tolerated foreigner to them in our shared country). I should add they are all WASPs. My question is this: is this a local phenomenon unique to this group? |
#2
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H.S. Latin recollection: Most/all Latin (Roman?) nouns were gendered, and instead of an article, they changed the suffix of the word, "-a" was a common female suffix, "-us" was a common male designator ('Fenestra' = window = female, 'gladius' = Sword = male)
not sure if this helps. -Johnus
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#3
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it's called Zero Marking, if I remember Linguistics correctly.
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#4
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Probably should've look-up terminology because I messed it up.
I shouldn't have said the article, it remains indefinite. Blame lack of caffeination. These guys (and one woman) use a masculine pronoun (almost never feminine) in reference to an object. "That shovel is in the shed. He's up against the left wall." |
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You may find it interesting to note Francis P Dinneen's book on the subject, which shows that the attempt to match gender and nouns is something that was done as a mnemonic device to help foreigners, especially Greeks, who were learning Latin, when it was the common commercial language of the world. I enjoyed studying under him in grad school at Georgetown. He is now deceased. BTW there are three genders in Latin and you have to be careful when you make statements about endings signaling gender. there are plenty of exceptions to every rule in Latin/Romance languages and in Germanic ones. Latin has five declensions or classes of nouns and nominatives. In one declension an ending can be " masculine" in another "neuter." The classification system was just a way to help learning, it isn't really indicative of the grammatical structure of the language. Actually, the morphology of the language if you want to be technical.
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I regret not taking Latin. It was offered in my high school.
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In this example could it be an accent that is throwing things off? Where 'It is' can sound a lot like 'He's' ('Eezz' sounding)??
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#9
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I think part of this is a form of humor. People who learn English as a second language make jokes of this form. My grandfather's father was an immigrant and my grandfather still made jokes like "more better". I, myself slaughter the language for fun.
When I was young there were very strong regional dialects. Modern communications have homogenized things greatly. |
#10
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I think part of this is a form of humor. People who learn English as a second language make jokes of this form. My grandfather's father was an immigrant and my grandfather still made jokes like "more better". I, myself, slaughter the language for fun.
When I was young there were very strong regional dialects. Modern communications have homogenized things greatly. |
#11
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I grew-up with the accent (Louisiana piney woods rather than acadiens). No, it's plain.
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#12
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#13
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Amo. Amas. Amat....
The verb "love" was it? Jesuit training on I St. DC: 4 years of Latin and two of either Greek or French. Family moved away after two years. Anyone who studied Latin knows this: "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres" Close resemblance to English. Not hard to figure out. |
#14
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Spanish: esposa = wife, esposas = handcuffs
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#15
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"Chicken is divided in three parts"?
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