indefinite article

The second type shown involves languages in which the numeral for ‘one’ is used as an indefinite article . Many languages use the numeral for ‘one’ in contexts where English would use an indefinite article. In some languages, this use of the numeral for ‘one’ is more or less obligatory as a marker of indefinite noun phrases, at least if they are singular. For example, example (2) from German would be ungrammatical if the numeral for ‘one’ were left out. Ich habe einen Hund gekauft. I have one dog bought ‘I bought a/one dog.’ a. muy kaylabay gisiŋ b. bire muy one black chicken stone a ‘one black chicken’ ‘a stone’ uma-té-do abül-fekha khomilo-bo tell-3pl.real-ds man-indef die.3sg.real-perf ‘They told that a certain man had died.’ a. hánu=wɛ̄r b. kám sɛrɛ̄́=wēg ɛ́tta donkey=indef camel good=indef bring ‘a donkey’ ‘Bring a good camel.’ Such indefinite clitics are treated as separate words for the purposes of this map. n=̓uquxaqanmuxu-ni yi¢kiʔmi-s niʔ ʔa•kuⱡak ind =fall.into-ind pot-obv the meat ‘The pieces of meat fell off into the/a pot’ As discussed in Chapter 37 , the criteria for definite articles include morphemes that signal specificity rather than definiteness: in some languages the morpheme treated in Map 37A as a definite article actually codes specificity in that it occurs not only with definite noun phrases but also with indefinite specific noun phrases. In the same way, a morpheme that codes a noun phrase as being nonspecific (rather than indefinite) is treated on this map as an indefinite article. For example, the specific article ta in Futuna-Aniwa (Polynesian; Vanuatu ) is used both where English would use the definite article, and where English would use the indefinite article but where the speaker has a specific referent in mind, as in (9a); by contrast, the nonspecific article sa is used where the speaker has no particular referent in mind, as in (9b). a. na-n tukia ta fatu pst-1sg hit spec rock ‘I hit against a rock.’ b. a roroveka kaseroitia ma sa ika aratu art Roroveka catch neg nonspec fish tomorrow ‘Roroveka won’t get any fish tomorrow.’ The features shown on this map do not show strong areal patterns. Languages with indefinite articles of some sort are somewhat more common in (i) Europe; (ii) central and western Africa; (iii) an area in Asia stretching from the Middle East to Burma; (iv) the eastern part of New Guinea and the Pacific; and (v) Mexico and Central America. Languages lacking indefinite articles are widely distributed but are somewhat more common in (i) the Americas other than Mexico and Central America; (ii) Australia; and (iii) northern Asia. Among the three types of indefinite articles shown on the map, languages in which the numeral for ‘one’ can serve as an indefinite article are widely scattered, while languages in which the indefinite article is distinct from the numeral for ‘one’ are somewhat more common in Africa and Europe. Languages with indefinite affixes are not common, but are widely scattered. They are more common in Africa than elsewhere in the world. As discussed in §3 of Chapter 88 , there are some languages, like English , in which articles belong to a category of determiner with a particular position in the noun phrase, while other languages lack such a category in the sense that definite articles and demonstratives occur in different positions in the noun phrase and can co-occur. Similar comments apply to indefinite articles, except that they rarely can co-occur with demonstratives, for semantic reasons. However, there are languages lacking definite articles in which the indefinite article appears in a different syntactic position within the noun phrase from demonstratives, showing that it does not form a category of determiner with demonstratives. For example, the indefinite article in Dongolese Nubian is a clitic that attaches to the last word in the noun phrase, as in (6) above; however, the demonstrative precedes the noun, as in (10). In fact, there are lan