Articles

Latin had no articles. Each sister built a definite article out of the demonstrative ILLE 'that' and an indefinite article out of ŪNUS 'one'. The results agree with the noun in gender and number, and the sisters use them more than English does: for things in general (el café, le café, il caffè, el cafè, cafeaua — 'coffee') as well as for particular ones. Brazilian Portuguese often leaves a general noun bare: adoro café. Romanian goes its own way: its definite article is an ending on the noun — lup 'wolf', lupul 'the wolf'.

Italian: the article listens to the next sound

Spanish el agua

Feminine nouns that begin with a stressed a- (or ha-) take el and un in the singular: el agua, el águila, el hacha, el hambre, un aula. They stay feminine — el agua fría, las aguas — because this el is not the masculine article: it is the old feminine ela (from ILLA), which lost its -a before the stressed vowel. With an unstressed a- nothing happens: la amiga, la abeja. The other sisters have no such rule: a água, l'aigua, apa.

Romanian: the article at the end

Romanian keeps the indefinite in front (un lup, o casă) but fixes the definite to the end of the noun: lupul 'the wolf', casa 'the house', lupii 'the wolves', casele 'the houses'. When an adjective comes first, the article moves onto it: frumoasa casă 'the beautiful house'. Neuter nouns (see the gender lesson) take masculine endings in the singular and feminine ones in the plural.

Articles with names

Standard Spanish, French and Italian names stand bare. In much of Brazil a first name takes the article as a matter of course — o João, a Maria — and it fuses like any other: a casa do João. Catalan has a special personal article: en before a man's name (n' before a vowel), la or l' before a woman's: en Joan, n'Andreu, la Maria, l'Anna (in Barcelona speech el Joan is common too). Romanian puts lui before a man's name to mark possession: cartea lui Ion 'Ion's book'.

Contractions

Prepositions fuse with articles in five of the six, to different degrees. Spanish has just two contractions: a + el = al, de + el = del. Catalan fuses a, de and per with el and els — al, als, del, dels, pel, pels — but not with la or les. French fuses à and de with le and les — au, aux, du, des — but not with la or l' (à la, de l', de la). Portuguese fuses a, de, em and por with every article: de + o = do, em + a = na, a + a = à, por + o = pelo, and even em + um = num. Italian fuses five prepositions with every article, and in and di change shape on the way: in + il = nel, di + il = del. Romanian has nothing to fuse: its article sits at the far end of the noun, and most prepositions take the noun without it — la piață, pe masă — unless it is modified: pe masa din bucătărie.