textbook recommendation

[David Kaiser]

It seems that in English, at least my variety of American English, the
definite article is associated with some sort of title or designation. THE
United States (BTW, the abbreviation is treated as a grammatical singular:
the U.S. *IS* my home, not the U.S. *ARE* my home) as opposed to America,
the People's Republic of China as opposed to China, the Czech Republic, The
United Kingdom as opposed to England (not synonymous, I know, please don't
start), the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation as opposed to Russia.
Perhaps The Philippines is short for The Philippine Islands. I know I have
heard the Faulklands, the Marshalls, the Bahamas, etc. Some are
independent, some are not. Any comment here? The Congo is the only
non-multiple-island country I can think of off the top of my head that has
an article without a title, and I know I've heard Congo as well. If the
issue of political sovereignty versus domination is at the heart of the
issue, one would expect there to be a linguistic feud over Palestine vs THE
Palestine, since the status of sovereignty of that place is being debated.
To my knowledge, there is no such feud, the place is referred to as
Palestine regardless of one's beliefs about the status of Palestinian
nationhood or lack thereof. I suspect this Ukrainian issue is not so much
about English linguistics as it is about Slavic prepositions na vs v, where
such distinctions and their sociopolitical meanings are preserved.


DKaiser

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