GB023 - grambank/grambank GitHub Wiki

Are there postnominal articles?

Summary

All questions concerning the order of elements aim to capture a pragmatically unmarked order.If both GB022 and GB023 are coded 1, please write a comment. Articles cover both definite or indefinite articles as defined in GB020 and GB021 respectively. In order to answer 1 for this feature, the markers' functions need to meet one of those definitions, so 1 should also have been answered for GB020 or GB021.

Procedure

1. If there are articles, code 1 if in a pragmatically unmarked order they follow the noun.
2. If there is an item which occurs after the noun which may be an article but which receives ? for GB020 or GB021, then code ?.
3. If demonstratives and articles are not well described in the language, then code ?.
4. If both GB023 and GB022 are coded as 1, please leave a comment explaining this as we are interested in the reasons that a language may have both prenominal and postnominal articles.

Examples

Standard Arabic (ISO 639-3: arb, Glottolog: stan1318)

Coded 1. The definite article is prenominal and prefixes to the noun. The indefinite article is postnominal and marked by a suffixed /-n/ sound.

Definite article:

a. al-xubz  
   DEF-bread  
   ‘the bread’ (Ryding 2005: 156)

Indefinite article:

b. bayt-un
   house-INDF
   ‘a house’ (Ryding 2005: 156)

Lozi (ISO 639-3: loz, Glottolog: lozi1239)

Coded 0. The absence of articles is not explicitly mentioned, but the example sentences never show articles. Demonstratives are well-described (Fortune 2001: 6–105).

Lunda (ISO 639-3: lun, Glottolog: lund1266)

Coded ?. Indefiniteness can be expressed with a postnominal quantifier, but it is not clear how far this marker has grammaticalized into a dedicated or sufficiently obligatory indefinite marker (Kawasha 2003: 132). Lunda is also coded ? for GB021 Do indefinite nominals commonly have indefinite articles?.

Further reading

Dryer, Matthew S. 2013. Definite articles. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Dryer, Matthew S. 2013. Indefinite articles. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

References

Fortune, George. 2001. An outline of Silozi grammar. Lusaka, Zambia: Bookworld Publishers.

Kawasha, Boniface Kaumba. 2003. Lunda grammar: A morphosyntactic and semantic analysis. Eugene: University of Oregon. (Doctoral dissertation.)

Ryding, Karin C. 2005. A reference grammar of Modern Standard Arabic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Related Features

• GB020 Are there definite or specific articles?
• GB021 Do indefinite nominals commonly have indefinite articles?
• GB022 Are there prenominal articles?

Patron

Jay Latarche and Jeremy Collins