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--SNIP-- > > I was wondering what the exact meaning of > > "to" was: does it just refer to something previously mentioned, or does it > > have some of the other meanings of the English "the", like "the only one" or > > "a generic instance of"? --SNIP-- The one usage of 'the' that really stands out to me as quite different from others is when it's used as a class marker (terminology?): 'The lion is a mighty beast.' Do we mean the lion we were talking about, or the only lion at our local zoo, which we all know about -- which would both require 'the' - - or all lions in general? I think using 'the' with this meaning is logically shaky. If I wanted to express the third alternative to a non-native-English speaker, I would probably express it as 'Lions are mighty beasts.' --SNIP-- > > -Let's meet at the entrance. > > -Where is the bathroom? > > This seems kind of catch-all. Don't most of these sort of mean 'the one we > all know about, logically, without its necessarily being mentioned before'? I agree, but these last two are a touch idiomatic: 'Let's meet at the entrance that we assume exists and is unique'; 'Where is the bathroom that I assume exists but is not necessarily unique?'. We probably wouldn't say 'Let's meet at an entrance' (unless we were just starting to think about where to meet, expecting to firm up our plans shortly), but we might well say 'Where is a bathroom?'. > > > > TD. the one identified by/as (the modifier of the noun) > > -the man who answered (as opposed to the one who ignored his phone) > > This usage does seem different, somehow. Question is, would 'to' suffice > for these, without ambiguity. > > To jino hu pa fanbol. To pa fanbol se jino. as opposed to > Te jino hu pa fanbol. > As in English, there's a difference between 'the man who answered' and 'a > man who answered' > I think "to" works okay here, as a shortcut way of expressing 'A man answered and the man said....' It's a specific designation, just one that's kind of built-in to the phrase. --Krawn