Re: Probability of Article Replacement?

Nik Taylor scripsit:
> Stephen Mulraney wrote:
> > There's more to it than that; "Describing Morphosyntax" at one point
> > (p266) mentions how some languages mark "discourse referentiality",
> > which is when a newly-introduced item in discourse is "destined to
> > feature" in the narrative. He then goes on to reference Wright and Givon
> > (1987), saying that they "have shown that the demonstrative _this_
> > in spoken English is, among other things, an indicator of discourse
> > referentiality.
In Washingtonspeak, people in opposition speak of "this President", and
even sometimes his supporters do when they want to disassociate him
from something.  "This (Chief) Justice" is also heard; the unmarked
forms use "the", of course.

It reminds me a little bit of French "c,a" as a pronoun of contempt
when applied to animates: "c,a me degoute, ces conservatives".

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_