<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV>SignWriting List</DIV><DIV>August 15, 2005</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>What a wonderful grammar lesson, Stuart! Thank you!! Val ;-)</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>------------------</DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Aug 15, 2005, at 1:16 PM, Stuart Thiessen wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT face="Geneva" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Geneva">Linguistically, the word "the" fits in the category of words called determiners. In English, it is called the definite article.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Some languages have them and some languages do not.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>There is some debate about whether or not ASL really has determiners or not.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Sometimes the index finger pointing at a specific object or location can sometimes be understood like the word "the" in English.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>For example,</FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Geneva; min-height: 19px; "><BR></DIV> <BR><SPAN></SPAN><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Geneva; min-height: 19px; "><SPAN></SPAN></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></BODY></HTML>