South Carpathian grammar: Difference between revisions

South Carpathian only has a definite article ''a''. The article is invariable (i.e. not marked for number or case). It is thought to form from a Proto-Carpathian demonstrative pronoun ''*ha'', meaning "this thing". Some scholars claim South Carpathian ''a'' to be the cognate to the Alpian definite article ''da'', which is considered unlikely nowadays, since the oldest Carpathian attestations doesn't show traces of any articles. According to another theory, it is a borrowing from Hungarian.

Unlike English "the", the definite article in South Carpathian can be used if the speaker is talking about a specific item without referring to it previously, with the only exception of proper names and nouns with possessive suffixes, where the article is not used. For example, ''Ăikĭg muib a pardoda'' "Give me the axe", where ''a'' can be translated to both "a" and "the" in English, since the axe hasn't been referred to previously, but "the" is chosen by the context. In negative and quotative statements the word ''a'' is usually not used.