🚀 go-pugleaf

Since there are some Romance language specialists here lately, I'd
like to pose a question that has been bothering me for some time, ever
since reading the extensive discussion of the nuances of Spanish
"personal a" in the nice grammar of Gili y Gaya.

This has to do with the difference between, e.g., (a) and (b):

	(a) Quiero ver una bailari'n.
	(b) Quiero ver a una bailari'n.

Is this nothing more than the standard distinction made in
contemporary lingustics between referring and non-referring NPs?
If so, "personal a" would indicate that the speaker has a particular
dancer in mind in (b), but in the case of (a), the speaker has no
particular dancer in mind; any one will do.

This would account for why "personal a" is always used with personal
names (the rule we usually learn in Spanish classes); personal names
always refer.
-- 
-Ken <miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> {Sometimes you have to look reality straight
 OPINIONS ARE MY OWN            {in the eye, and deny it. - G. Keillor