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

[Rory M Larson]

John wrote:
>  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 have the notion that apertures tend to be =tHe.  If so,
that will explain 'mouth' and '(inner) ear', but checking
it against other parts of the anatomy may be awkward.

For 'hand', I still like the concept of it being a set
of fingers.  Since *naNpe is newly adopted to mean 'hand'
in MVS, could its original meaning have been 'finger'?
This wouldn't affect 'foot', which is older, and probably
was not derived as 'set of toes'.

Rory