definite article

“mii maanpii wii-bkeyaanh” kido giiwenh wa mko but here intend-turn.off.1sg say.3sg it.is.said that bear ‘“Well, this is where I turn off,” the bear said.’ Similarly, the other main protagonist in the text, a man, is mentioned the first time with a verbal expression, but the two subsequent mentions involve a demonstrative. But all of the Eastern Ojibwa demonstratives are translated by ‘the’ in the English translations and the translations would have sounded unnatural if they had been translated with English demonstratives. Definite noun phrases do not always occur with a demonstrative in Eastern Ojibwa texts, but they very often do. Descriptions of languages often do not make clear that one of the demonstratives is commonly used for anaphoric reference, so it is likely that some languages shown on the map as lacking definite articles would under closer examination turn out to be languages in which the demonstrative is used as a definite article. It is possible that some of the languages shown as having definite affixes actually have definite clitics instead. a. fanu ʔafa man indef ‘a man’ b. nen-ni wate amoʔo=pe ese-i-ʔa 3pl-erg house new=ben want-3pl-ind ‘They want a new house.’ The final type shown on the map involves languages with neither an indefinite article nor a definite article . In such languages, noun phrases are generally vague with respect to definiteness, as illustrated in (8) for Cherokee (Iroquoian ; North Carolina and Tennessee). a. mand-en man-the.common.sg ‘the man’ b. den gamle mand the old man ‘the old man’ Languages with definite articles which are words distinct from demonstratives are common in Europe, especially western Europe, in a wide belt across central Africa from west to east (though not in the south), in the Pacific, and in Mesoamerica, as well as being scattered in other areas. They are relatively infrequent in much of Asia, in South America, and in North America except near the west coast. Languages in which demonstratives are used as definite articles are widely scattered, but are relatively more common in the United States, and are relatively infrequent in the Americas south of the United States and in Europe. Languages with definite affixes are relatively common in parts of Europe, both in an area stretching from Scandinavia to northern Russia and in a couple of languages in the Balkan area, in the Middle East, among Northwest Caucasian languages, in the same belt across Africa in which definite article words distinct from demonstratives are common, and in western North America. Languages lacking definite articles are common in most areas of the world, but especially so in Asia and South America. Two areas in which they are infrequent are western Europe and a narrow belt across Africa on the southern boundary of the Sahara. Languages with an indefinite article but no definite article are common in an area in Asia stretching from Turkey to India. In English and many other European languages, definite articles are often considered part of a larger category of determiners along with demonstratives and various other words that occur in the same position within noun phrases. In other languages, such a determiner category is less motivated; see Chapters 38 and 88 for discussion. See Map 88A on the order of demonstrative and noun.