Speaking Of Words: An Article On Articles

Michael Ferber, Speaking of Words, InDepth NH

We usually say that English has two kinds of articles, definite and indefinite. The definite article is the, and it precedes a noun or noun-phrase that refers to something definite, unique, or previously mentioned: the man you spoke about, the day before yesterday, Henry the Eighth. Quite a few languages have it, but some of them use it in more places than we do. In Spanish and French, for instance, it is often used in generalizations (El oro es precioso, L’or est précieux, where we say Gold is precious) and before languages (Pablo estudia el inglés, Paul étudie l’anglais, but Paul studies English). These differences from English usage are a little unsettling, though we can enjoy the efforts of foreigners who say things like I speak very well the English.

But we are sometimes strangely inconsistent in English about where we deploy the. We use it of rivers (the Mississippi, the Merrimack) but not of lakes, we use it of groups of islands (the Azores, the Isles of Shoals) but not of individual islands, and we use it of mountain ranges (the Andes, the White Mountains) but not of individual mountains, unless they are in Switzerland (the Matterhorn, the Jungfrau). We used to use it for certain countries (the Argentine, the Lebanon, the Ukraine) but these are considered out of date. So the definite article is not quite as definite as we usually think.

The indefinite article in English is a or an. Somewhat fewer languages have it than have the definite article. It is a general rule in the history of a language that the definite article arises first, then the indefinite article. Latin, for example, had neither definite nor indefinite articles, and in its daughter languages the definite appeared before the indefinite. The definite derives from weakened or unstressed versions of the demonstrative adjective meaning “that” or “those”: ille became le in French, il in Italian, and el in Spanish, while illa became la in all three languages. The stressed versions of ille, illa, etc. became the pronouns “he, she,” etc.: il and elle in French, egli and ella in Italian, and so on.

The same thing happened in English and German. Our article the comes from the neuter singular demonstrative that, while in German the neuter article das comes from the demonstrative dass. That seems to be general rule as well. Homeric Greek lacked both kinds of articles, but Classical Greek had definites that came from demonstratives. Hebrew ha– and Arabic al– may have come from Proto-Semitic hal, meaning “this.” The difference between this and that we will take up in a moment.

Where do the indefinites come from? In English a big clue is the form an: it derives from Old English an (pronounced like on), which meant “one.” In certain restricted uses a and one are still synonyms: A Mister Jones telephoned, sir, versus One Mister Jones telephoned, sir. But otherwise a and an are no longer equivalent to one: I have a is not a complete clause, though I have one is. Likewise I have the is not a clause, though I have that is.

The Romance languages formed their indefinite article in the same way, from the number one. French un and une, Spanish uno and una, etc., go back to Latin unus, una,and unum. The same is true of Modern Greek. Spanish has plurals of uno and una, namely unos and unas, but they do not mean ones in English, as in little ones; they mean some, which is the closest thing we have to an indefinite plural (though it can be singular as well, as in Some man named Jones telephoned, sir).

The demonstrative adjectives are said to be “deictic,” that is, they point to something with respect to the speaker’s position in space. Some adverbs are also deictic, such as here and over there. Other deictics involve time, such as now, then, yesterday, and the tenses of verbs. English demonstratives today have two deictic positions: this (near me and you) and that (farther away); but they used to have three positions: this (near me), that (near you), and yon (over there). They seemed to correspond to the three persons, though there are languages with more than three deictic positions. Yon in most dialects is archaic or poetic: “yon taper cheers the vale / With hospitable ray” (Oliver Goldsmith). We also had the adverb set here, there, and yonder.

Latin had three positions (hic, iste, and ille) and some of the Romance languages preserve them: Tuscan Italian questo, codesto, quello; Portuguese esto, esso, aquelo; and so on. Japanese has three as well: kono, sono, ano.

Its lack of articles makes translating Latin both difficult and conveniently flexible. Charles, when he was Prince of Wales, suggested a new translation of fidei defensor, a title conferred on Henry the Eighth by Parliament in 1543. It has always been translated “Defender of the Faith”; the full title is “Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in Earth the Supreme Head.” Charles suggested that fidei defensor could be rendered “Defender of Faith”—faith in general, all faiths—though he failed to note that millions of Britons do not profess any faith. The best-selling translation of Winnie the Pooh into Latin (1958) ran into trouble from the outset; Alexander Lennard had to settle on Winnie ille Pu, “Winnie that Pooh.”

Latin is not alone. Nearly all the Slavic languages lack articles of both kinds, and so do Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. There are often work-arounds, however. Latin had quidam and a few other words for “particular indefinites” that may be translated “a certain X.” Ancient Greek could add tis: anthropos tis, “some man, a man, a certain man.”

In a Japanese conversation, if a noun (cat, for example) has been introduced as the topic, then the particle wa follows it thereafter: neko wa … (“as for the cat…”). That comes close to assigning the definite article to it. If you are bringing up the subject, you would add ga instead: neko ga … (“a cat …”). In Mandarin Chinese, I read recently, nage (“that”) is emerging as a definite article and yige (“one”) is emerging as an indefinite. If that is true, Mandarin will follow the pattern of the Romance and West Germanic languages, and Greek.

In English, articles precede the noun or the adjective in a noun phrase: the pig, a pig, the little pig, etc. They even precede quantifiers such as numbers: the three little pigs. But in some languages articles follow the noun, rather like Greek tis and Japanese wa and ga. Modern Icelandic has no indefinite articles, so hvalur can mean “whale” or “a whale,” but hvalurinn means “the whale.” In Danish, dreng means “boy,” while drengen means “the boy” (and drengene means “the boys”). The endings here, –inn and –en(e), have the same source as English yon.

Well, this was an article on articles, if not the article on articles. There will be a quiz next week.

I am happy to hear from readers with questions or comments: mferber@unh.edu.

Michael Ferber moved to New Hampshire in 1987 to join the English Department at UNH, from which he is now retired. Before that he earned his BA in Ancient Greek at Swarthmore College and his doctorate in English at Harvard, taught at Yale, and served on the staff of the Coalition for a New Foreign Policy in Washington, DC. In 1968 he stood trial in Federal Court in Boston for conspiracy to violate the draft law, with the pediatrician Benjamin Spock and three other men. He has published many books and articles on literature, and has a deep interest in linguistics. He is married to Susan Arnold; they have a daughter in San Francisco.

This story was originally published by InDepth NH.