OP /the/ vs. /dhaN/ (fwd)

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 18 May 2004, Rory M Larson wrote:
> I decided to wait till I had checked with the speakers again before
> replying to this thread, and by now John has gone far beyond me!

A rather flattering appraisal.  Actually, if it hadn't been for you and
the others - Ardis, Bob, Catherine - discussing this I'd still be mired
deep in complacency.  Anyone have any ideas on why 'mouth' or 'hand'
should be =the?  '(Outer) ears' might, I suppose, be a set, but this
doesn't seem to affect 'eyes'.  A mouth is a rather complex assembly of
lips and teeth, and a hand, like pants, is singular at the top and
plural at the bottom.  (Mark Twain?)  But then why not 'foot'?  I wish the
Fletcher & LaFlesche body parts list had articles attached!

It's begining to be clear that you'd probably have to list articles or
something about articles with the nouns in an OP dictionary.  There
certainly seems to be some degree of conventionality regarding what range
of articles you can use with particular nouns and what the implications
are of using (each of) them. Some (inanimate) nouns might be dhaN/the/ge
or khe/the/ge, others dhaN/the/khe/ge and so on.