When did articles appear in Romance languages?

From the ninth century, when the first vernacular texts appear, all the Romance languages show a fully developed definite and indefinite article close in form, if not in usage, to that of the modern language.

Does Latin have definite indefinite articles?

There is no definite or indefinite article in Latin, so that rēx can mean “king”, “a king”, or “the king” according to context.

Why do Romance languages not have cases?

The Romance languages resulted from Latin being superimposed on the local languages, since this happened in the Indo European speech area, something like creole languages resulted. The first thing that happens then is that grammar takes a hike and word order is used to mark noun roles previously indicated by case.

Are articles used in Latin?

Latin does not use articles. When translating a sentence from Latin to English, the Latin student must provide them him/herself using only context and logic to determine whether a definite or indefinite article is more appropriate.

Does the Latin language use articles?

Why did Latin lose its cases?

1. Sounds erode. Languages with stress on the beginnings of words tend to have the least stress on the ends of words, and that’s where the Indo-European case endings were. In general, unstressed sounds tend to be less pronounced and eventually not pronounced, so they went away.

What are the Latin cases?

Here are some reflections on how cases in general relate to meaning in a sentence. There are 6 distinct cases in Latin: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative, and Vocative; and there are vestiges of a seventh, the Locative.

Is Latin and English related?

English is a Germanic language, while Latin is an Italic language… neither is a direct ancestor of the other. Instead, English and Latin are both members of the Indo European language family, with English belonging to the Germanic branch and Latin belonging to the Italic branch (see below).