Re: Countries with needless definite article.

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

mje@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> how far subtleties of that sort transfer to English.
I suspect it's not so much a case of transferring to English as
of Latin, English, and German too all manifesting a basic pattern
that may well have been found in Proto-Indo-European. The
grammars (using the word in a narrow sense to mean the existence
and use of cases, tenses, and modes) of many of the Indo-European
languages display considerable similarities; the differences show
up in idiom, syntax, vocabulary (and which inflections remain,
the tendency being for inflections to be worn down over time).

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx