Telenzh Articles (was: Re: Probability of Article Replacement)

Oh-well. There appears to be pretty little evidence of natlangs replacing
articles, but people seem to think it's not that improbable. So, I'm probably
going to have the aforementioned chain-shift for Telenzh.

The old system;

|        "near" demonstrative    definite article     indefinite article
| sg              ha                  ez                     -
| pl              ha                  ez                     -

would turn into the new one;

|        "near" demonstrative    definite article     indefinite article
| sg              hadz                ha                     ez
| pl              han                 ha                     ez

via a process where _ez_ becomes so omnipresent that people start using _ha_
to disambuiguously indicate definiteness, which in turn causes _ha dza_>_hadz_
to take over as a proper demonstrative in the sg, whereas the pl near
demonstrative pronoun _han_ takes over in the sg. _Hadz_ also replace _ha_ as
sg demonstrative pronoun. And _ez_ ends up standing before every noun not
having a _ha_ or _hadz_/_han_, essentially turning it into an indefinite
article.

The "far" demonstrative _li_ may mutate into _lidz_ on analogy with _hadz_.

Seems believable, d'ya think?

                                                           Andreas

PS I should perhaps point out that "Telenzh" is the Tairezazh name of this
language. The Telenzh term is _Telendlest_.