Goal: Write an introduction to definiteness
Note: If forms shift depending on other inflections, show examples.
Tip: Include both marked and unmarked forms in examples.
Work focus: Solidify/Write/Share
As a continuation of the past few days, today’s goal is to write an introduction to how your language treats definiteness. If you don’t have any definiteness markers but have a strategy in mind for ways definiteness might be signaled by other means (such as word order shifts, use of particular modifiers, etc.), then make a note of your plans here. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had an idea I want to incorporate in a future stage of the language but forget to put those ideas in the language’s document and, thus, forget to incorporate the feature or strategy I had in mind.
If you have definite markers (or indefinite markers) that shift based on other features (e.g. the definite marker inflects for number based on the noun’s number), make sure you include examples to show how the forms shift.
As you provide examples, it’s good to include both marked and unmarked forms. For instance, if you wanted to mark definite nouns but leave indefinite nouns unmarked, include examples for both, such as listing something like this:
lav ~ lavu “a bird ~ the bird”
buna ~ buno “a leaf ~ the leaf”
These unmarked examples are just as important as the marked ones because they show base forms (which are especially important if a root’s form shifts when a suffix is added), and they indicate how a form is best translated when it occurs on its own.