A funny quirk of English I never noticed until I started learning Spanish:
In Spanish, to say for example, "he is a doctor," you would say "él es médico." Which more literally translates to "he is doctor," which feels unintuitive coming from English. Spanish DOES have an equivalent for "a" - "un/una", so the natural thing for an English speaker to say would be "él es UN médico", but I understand that to be awkward/unnatural.
But then I realized, when you say the same sentence in plural - "they are doctors" - you don't have an article. You don't say "they are some doctors" (I had to Google, apparently "some" isn't an article anyway?)
So Spanish ends up more consistent - Singular: "Él es médico." Plural: "Ellos son medicos."
Unlike English - Singular: "He is a doctor." Plural: "They are doctors."
I actually meant it as a continuum. In classical latin, ille and unus exist, but they are not articles. In the vulgar latin period circa 800ad, they are pretty close to articles. In modern romance they're articles.
You can't say "beyond a certain point" because what point that is varies with geography.
hbn · · focus · HN ↗
In Spanish, to say for example, "he is a doctor," you would say "él es médico." Which more literally translates to "he is doctor," which feels unintuitive coming from English. Spanish DOES have an equivalent for "a" - "un/una", so the natural thing for an English speaker to say would be "él es UN médico", but I understand that to be awkward/unnatural.
But then I realized, when you say the same sentence in plural - "they are doctors" - you don't have an article. You don't say "they are some doctors" (I had to Google, apparently "some" isn't an article anyway?)
So Spanish ends up more consistent - Singular: "Él es médico." Plural: "Ellos son medicos."
Unlike English - Singular: "He is a doctor." Plural: "They are doctors."
asveikau · · focus · HN ↗
So for example latin didn't have them. Eventually they evolved from ille and unus.
Much of Eastern Europe still does not have articles.
rawling · · focus · HN ↗
Heh, while we're discussing English, this annoys me.
"The further back you go" is a continuum, the effect you describe should be too.
> The further back you go, the fewer Indo-European languages have articles.
Or match a discontinuity with a discontinuity.
> If you go back beyond a certain point, Indo-European languages don't have articles.
asveikau · · focus · HN ↗
You can't say "beyond a certain point" because what point that is varies with geography.