[gothic-l] "the"

[Егоров Владимир]

**********************
Hi Llama Nom!

I have to admit that, throwing into the "the" discussion the remark
upon inspiration of the Romance definite articles by Germanic,
I hoped to acquire a definite answer on origins of both Romance and
Germanic articles. It starts seeming to me I missed.
No doubt, the definite article arose as far back as in the vulgar Latin,
since all Romance languages, as you have rightly noted, have similar
derivatives. The postposition of the Romanian definite article is solely
due to the Dacian substrate. It is typical for all Balkan language union.
Cf. the Bulgarian enclitics <-ot, -to, -ta>, which are of the Slavonic
origin (from <tot, to, ta> 'this, that' by genders) though none of other
Slavonic languages have neither the enclitics nor the definite articles
at all. You know, Bulgarian, being a Slavic language, also belongs,
with its Thracian substrate, to the Balkan language union.

Vladimir


-----Original Message-----
From: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com [mailto:gothic-l at yahoogroups.com]On
Behalf Of llama_nom
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 9:05 PM
To: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [gothic-l] "the"



So, what do we think?  Was the use of a definite article in Romance
inspired by Germanic?  Or vice-versa even?  I'm afraid I don't know
anything about when the Romance article arose.  It's common to eastern
and western varieties, except that Romanian (like North Germanic) has
fixed in after the noun, while the western Romance languages, as far
as I know, all have a preposed article.  Does this apply to more
obcure dialects too?  A cursory glance at the beginning of the Mark's
Gospel in the (Latin) Vulgate suggests a more sparing use of
demonstratives than Gothic.

Llama Nom





You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>.
Yahoo! Groups Links








------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater?
Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/pkgkPB/SOnJAA/Zx0JAA/wWMplB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>.
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gothic-l/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    gothic-l-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/