Abstract
In this paper, the use of the definite article in semantic and pragmatic categories in the Greek and Classical Armenian New Testament translation is compared. Greek and Classical Armenian agree in their use of the definite article only in NPs determined by contrastive attributes. In all other categories the systems of both languages differ. Generally, Armenian avoids the definite article with proper nouns and nouns with unique reference, while definite articles with proper names in Greek are common (with the exception of sacred or especially “respected” persons such as prophets). If the definite article is present in Greek, it is often motivated by pragmatic factors (e.g. re-topicalization, etc.). There is no clear evidence in Armenian for the use of the definite article as a marker of generic reference, nor for the use in NPs determined by superlative, comparative or ordinal attributes.
Highlights
[1.1] Greek As recently discussed by Manolessou & Horrocks (2007), the case of Greek provides an especially illuminating example of this development
No definite article demonstrative ho, hê, tó mainly used as anaphoric pronoun; already article-like use in NPs determined by ordinals, superlatives, contrastive attributes “fully developed” article, used to convey pragmatic definiteness an article is obligatory in almost all argument NPs table 1: The article in the history of Greek, the same pronoun is still used mainly anaphorically, but can occur as a noun determiner having mainly the function of re-topicalizing a previously mentioned noun
One has to do with a triple system of proximal, medial and distal deixis/definiteness which we find among other IE languages most in Latin
Summary
14.–16. century BC ca. 800 BC ca. 800-300 BC since ca. 15th c. Cause these three elements occur in a range of pronominal stems as well, one may ask whether the clitics -s, -d, -n were the original base for a further evolution of the several demonstrative stems or if the development was rather the other way around, i.e. that the demonstrative series sa/da/na, ays/ayd/ayn, soyn/doyn/noyn existed primarily and the clitic articles –s/-d/-n were later ‘abstracted’ from these forms. Udi, the modern descendant of Caucasian Albanian, a language which was certainly in contact with Classical Armenian, has three deictic elements, -m- (proximal) / -ka- (medial) / -t’e- (-s(e)-) (distal), which are functionally similar to the Armenian clitic articles, cf Schulze (2008). In this paper I will approach the question of which semantic and pragmatic types of nominal definiteness we find in the language stage of Classical Armenian as attested in the 5th century translation of the New Testament. Functional nouns are relational nouns that identify the referent unambigously (e.g. ‘mother (of X)’ cannot refer to more than
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