tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Sep 26 09:30:18 2009
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Re: Articles
On Sep 26, 2009, at 12:03 AM, Doq wrote:
> English has definite (the) and indefinite (a, an) articles. Many
> languages don't. Of the polyglots out there that speak other languages
> that lack articles, is there any common way to differentiate between
> "I see an enemy," and "I see the enemy" besides the ubiquitous
> linguistic band-aid of "context"?
In languages which do not distinguish between "an enemy" and "the
enemy", the question does not arise. :)
Definite articles presuppose the existence of what is being
mentioned. In Klingon, one might do that using a type 4 noun
suffix. I see indefinite articles emphasizing the idea of
categorization rather than identification. I don't know a simple way
to do that in Klingon.
-- ghunchu'wI'