Using the indefinite articles

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Resending because I hadn't noticed that Mr. Goloviznin was diverting all 
replies to his private mailbox.

Goloviznin Konstantin wrote:

> Hi, all.
> 
> I was a bit suprisied to discover the indefinite article in ...
> Russian. But it really exists (in spite of the Official Grammar being
> blind on this). Just compare:
> 
> Есть у нас ОДИН(= количество) мужик в деревне ... нам бы еще одного.
> 
> 
> И
> 
> Жил был ОДИН (= какой-то, некоторый) старик со своею старухой у
> самого синего моря.
> 
> According the "iron-made" grammar rule the indefinite article must be
> always used with singular countable nouns. From another hand live
> speech trespasses this rule any time when a possibility appears: just
> to keep words in fluency I have to use the indefinite article
> otherwisely I don't use it. So we have two rules on using the article
> in English: formal and informal.
> 
> According the informal rule the following sentence in Russian works:
> зашел я как-то в ОДНУ фирму. Speaking - зашел я как-то в фирму - is
> not convinient.
> 
> What do you think about those two rules? Let me know!

Notwithstanding the aforesaid, ;-) I would deny that Russian has
articles. It occasionally uses words and constructions that perform some
of the functions of articles, but in general the Russian speaker does
not manipulate the definite/indefinite parameter in any systematic way.
You might as well say English has a ty/vy distinction -- we do some
things to indicate formality, but they are not a systematic part of our
grammar.

An interesting parallel here is Korean -- they don't have any word at
all for "please." However, every verb is marked with one or more of
several suffixes denoting the level of politeness, so the translator
instantly understands whether to use or not use "please" when rendering
a request in English. But English has none of these politeness markers;
we approach this parameter completely differently and asystematically.
It would be just as pointless to go looking for them in English as it
would be to go looking for articles in Russian.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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