Articles
English, like most European languages, uses only two articles:
- indefinite a
- definite the
By contrast, Tongan has three articles, and possessives also have a three-level definiteness distinction:
- indefinite ha. Example: ko ha pālangi ('a white person', or any other person from somewhere other than Tonga)
- semi-definite (h)e. Example: ko e pālangi ('the white person' in the sense that the person does not belong to some other race, but still rather 'a white person' if there are several of them)
- definite (h)e with the shifted ultimate stress. Example: ko e pālangí ('the white person', that particular person there and no one else).
Read more about this topic: Tongan Language
Famous quotes containing the word articles:
“A dwarf who brings a standard along with him to measure his own size—take my word, is a dwarf in more articles than one.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“There are several natural phenomena which I shall have to have explained to me before I can keep on going as a resident member of the human race. One is the metamorphosis which hats and suits undergo exactly one week after their purchase, whereby they are changed from smart, intensely becoming articles of apparel into something children use when they want to “dress up like daddy.””
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“How many things served us but yesterday as articles of faith, which today we deem but fables?”
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