Re: Conlang Change and The Definite Article

At 07:27 PM 4/22/2000 -0700, Barry Garcia wrote:
>steven@olywa.net writes:
>>I didn't know that there was a connection between VSO word order and the
>>use
>>of definite articles.   How many VSO languages have you studied?
>>Approximately how many VSO languages are there all told?   Are you sure
>>that
>>there is a VSO-definite article connection in natural languages?
>
>Interesting. Tagalog prefers VSO, and there are no articles (trigger
>markers). I put articles in Saalangal only because I like them. Anyway.....
Also, Jacaltec (a Mayan language) is VSO and doesn't have articles.  (It
does have classifiers that behave like articles in some ways, but they
don't mark definiteness; they're used with both definite and indefinite
noun phrases.)  I think this is true of the Mayan languages in general, but
I'm not sure.

- Tim