Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: andre@shappski.demon.co.uk (Andre Shapps)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!peernews.demon.co.uk!shappski.demon.co.uk!andre
Subject: Re: The logic of "and" and "but"
References: <600434857wnr@shappski.demon.co.uk> <3il3p5$ov2@ss1.cam.nist.gov>
Organization: The Soundfile
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Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 19:07:21 +0000
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In article: <3il3p5$ov2@ss1.cam.nist.gov>  koontz@cam.nist.gov (John E 
Koontz) writes:
>The English definite article can be used to indicate
> a class, when used with the simple present, e.g., The dog is man's
> primary pet." or "The dog eats meant almost exclusively."  I suspect
> this construction might be calqued from some outside source, perhaps
> French.

Do you think I'm right in saying that one of the reasons French uses 
articles so liberaly is because it is often hard to tell just from the 
sound of a noun whether it's being used in the singular or plural?

> Apart from articles, there are other ways to mark definiteness or
> specificity, etc., e.g., word order or case (of, e.g., direct object)
> and languages exist which don't mark them at all.

I don't quite understand this. I assume that Russian doesn't mark 
specificity in the way that you say, since "na ctale" means "on the chair" 
or "on a chair". Are you saying that there are languages where a case 
ending would changed depending of specificity?

BTW I think it's really great that an enthusiastic jumped up amateur like 
me can pump people that know what they're on about for answers. Thanks 
linguistic world. I hope to take a linguistics course one day.
-- 
Andre Shapps


