Re: Test and more.

> Fabian wrote:
> > <lil> is an odd word here, as it can mean 'to the' or 'to a'.  A flaw in
> > Maltese disambiguation not found in other particles.
>
> What's the origin of this {lil}?  I'd assume that, since Maltese is
> derived from Arabic, that in the sense "to the" it comes from a
> contraction of something with "al"?  Perhaps something like "li al" or
> "lil al"?
I double checked, since it seemed so odd. Here is the definitive
explanation:

lil hanut - to a shop
lil-hanut - to the shop

lil tifla - to a girl
lit-tifla - to the girl

lil uviera - to an egg-cup
lill-uviera - to the egg-cup

Explanation: the final L assimilates with certain consonants (those
pronounced in the dental/alveo-dental position), if the definite article is
present. Prepositions normally add a final L and hyphenate with their noun
to form a definite article, but because <lil> already has a final L, it
merely hyphenates. <lill> is another definite form used only when the
following noun (or adjective in some cases) begins with a vowel.

Yep, a hyphen is all that differentiates between indefinite and definite in
the vast majority of Maltese nouns when preceded by this preposition. Note
that <lil> implies motion - it really means 'towards'. If you want to point
out that you actually arrived at wherever, you would use <ghand> instead.

As for etymology, I'd guess Arabic, but I don't have any appropriate
references for that. Arabic has /ilej/ as the related word.

I had another look at that sample sentence <mart lil-hanut>, and realised
that a pronoun would be very important here. As it is, it could be any of:
'I', 'you' (singular), or 'she'. Maltesers would likely include a pronoun in
this case.

---
Fabian
Ikun li dik il-kitba tpatti it-tieba ta' qalb ta' patruni tieghi.
Ikun li ttaffi ugigh tal-Mitlufin u tal-Indannati.
Ikun li ilkoll li jaqraw il-kitba, qalbhom ihobbu is-Sewwa u l-Unur.
U b'dak l'ghamil, nithallas tax-xoghol iebes.