1281: Determiner Phrases: Greek Proper Nouns Jun 13, 2018

In English, there are no determiners which agree with proper nouns overtly; unlike nouns such as 'table', no words such as 'the' are necessary with names, so "Mike saw Ike" is fine, but one would need to include a determiner in "Mike saw the table". This is discussed in one of the Word Facts Video. However, in some languages such as Greek, this is necessary, such as in the transliterated:

Irthe o Pavlos kai o Giannis sto

wherein 'o' in front of "o Pavlos" and "o Giannis" literally means "the Pavlos [Paul]" and "the Giannis [John]". Other features like this have historically made certain translations clunkier and less colloquial than necessary, though for some contexts such as religion, this may be desired.