OP /the/ vs. /dhaN/

[Rankin, Robert L]

I found 'hand' and 'bow' and some other nouns were always the same
throughout the Dorsey texts.  Other nouns can vary, but the use was
derivational, not inflectional.  In other words, a noun like tti 'house'
would be tti=the but tti=dhaN wasn't just a squat house like a bark
lodge or earth lodge, but rather 'the camp circle'.  At least this was
so with the Kaw analogs.  So I don't think it pays to try to be too
"scientific" in trying to analyze the semantic content of the different
articles; the system is semi-arbitrary (for e.g. abstract nouns), like
all such systems, no matter what.  Dorsey does systematically divide the
singular from the collective senses of the articles, with the articles
doing a "round robin" in a collective context.  He tries to justify this
with his "bundle" or "heap" notions, but the results seem a bit
half-assed at best.

Bob

>> OP /the/ is actually pretty complicated in its usage.  It can refer
>> to a standing inanimate thing, like a post or a house, but it is
>> perhaps most commonly used to refer to ordered sets of things, like
>> (an armload of) rocks, or both members of a set of paired body parts.

>> Thus, one leg would be /khe/, "elongate", but both legs would be
>> /the/, "the set". One eye would be /dhaN/, "globular", but both eyes
>> would be /the/.  A single hand, however, is still /the/, I suppose
>> because all the fingers composing it are regarded as a set.

> Or maybe hands are just upright things?

Well, hands can come in various positions, and I suppose if