Re: postpositive articles in English

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Article #1918

#1918

From: Lars Henrik Mathiesen
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 10:54

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JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU writes:
>So far as I know, no Germanic languages have postposed articles.

In the modern North Germanic languages, nouns have a definite form,
used in very simple definite noun phrases, which historically seems to
be derived from a separately inflected, postposed article "hinn". (I
believe that Icelandic still has the double inflection, and it
survives in stock phrases in Danish, at least.) In more complex cases,
an preposed definite article is used, with language-dependent rules
for the definiteness of the noun.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!mcsun!sunic!dkuug!diku!thorinn
From: thorinn@diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: postpositive articles in English
Message-ID: <1992Nov20.105428.3095@odin.diku.dk>
Date: 20 Nov 92 10:54:28 GMT
References: <168A41249F.JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU>
Sender: thorinn@tyr.diku.dk
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen
Lines: 12

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