Emmett Stone 9/5/21 Emmett Stone 9/5/21

2459: Semitic Definite Article Sep 5, 2021

Two Semitic languages, Hebrew and Arabic, have on the surface two differently sourced definite articles, ה־ (ha-) in Hebrew and ٱلْـ‎ (al-) in Arabic, but some linguistics think otherwise. They surmise that originally there was a form هل۔/הל־ (hal-) used in a proto-Semitic language and as they two diverged, this form did as well, splitting in two separate ways. Not everyone agrees with this, and even those who would agree to the idea principle, they propose different forms. Some of these include in Arabic لا (lā) either through metathesis or as a different particle that eventually took on the meaning of a determiner.

Emmett Stone 8/12/21 Emmett Stone 8/12/21

2426: Construct State Aug 12, 2021

In Hebrew grammar, simple nouns are discussed as having three states, those being indefinite, definite, and construct. English has the first two types, at least principally, distinguished usually by articles such as 'a; an; some' in the indefinite and 'the; that' in the definite, but the construct genitive is not like anything in English, and can be either definite or indefinite. For instance, בית מדרש (beis medrash) literally 'house of learning' is constructed as a phonetically modified version בַּיִת (bayis) that indicates the following word is possessed; these constructions also have a unique plural form. Traditionally, an article on the definite form would be placed before the possessed word, so in this case בית המדרש (beis hamedrash) meaning 'the house of learning' and was considered that the article was part of the word. In Modern Hebrew however, it is not completely uncommon for the article to be placed in front of the possessor הבית מדרש (habeis medrash), which complicates these distinctions of states, to a degree.

Emmett Stone 8/10/21 Emmett Stone 8/10/21

2424: Hebrew Definite Attributive Articles Aug 10, 2021

In Hebrew, the definite article ה־ (ha-) not only applies to nouns but to attributive adjectives leading to the difference in

"a small boy" ילד קטן (yeled katan) compared to "the small boy" הילד הקטן (hayeled hakatan).

Part of the benefit of this system is that it distinguishes these attributive adjectives from being understood as a predicate adjective (i.e. "the boy is small"). This would still be a function when there is no definite article marker, such as with proper nouns. This is one argument for the idea the ה־ prefix is a semantic and morphological feature, rather than per se a definite article in its own right, though this could be contested.