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Mike S. scripsit: > As far as how "m" and "d" interact: I don't know if "m" was intended to > entail definiteness, though pragmatically at least that could be the usual > interpretation. That entailment is certainly not necessary though; plenty > of natlangs incl Portuguese and ancient Greek generally require the > definite article with proper names; others like French only sometimes e.g. > "la France". Proper names are always definite except in special cases like "a John Smith" which just means a person named John Smith. This is independent of whether they take articles or not: in English, Manhattan is as definite as the Bronx, and Terra is as definite as the Moon. -- "But I am the real Strider, fortunately," John Cowan he said, looking down at them with his face cowan@hidden.email softened by a sudden smile. "I am Aragorn son http://www.ccil.org/~cowan of Arathorn, and if by life or death I can save you, I will." --LotR Book I Chapter 10