Usage of definite articles in Germanic and Romance languages

Question

In the Germanic languages, a generic construction using the definite article with mass nouns is unacceptable. In contrast, Romance languages require the definite article to make the generic construction grammatical.

a.) The water is a liquid. (Unacceptable)

b.) The tiger is an animal. (acceptable)

c.) L'eau est un liquide. (acceptable)

The reason it is not acceptable in Germanic languages is that the definite article in Germanic languages requires the noun to have individuality. The noun must have a separate existence (boundedness) in order to make a definite generic sentence with it. Take the sentence above for example, "the tiger is an animal." refers to the ideal tiger that has every feature to be "tiger-ish", which we could call the "representative of all tigers". The fact that tiger is a countable noun contributes to the generic construction. There is no such thing as the "representative of water" to refer to, as water is homogeneous.

Now, what I would like to know is, what is different about the definite article in Romance languages compared to that of Germanic languages from a cognitive point of view? What is it that allows (or rather it is necessary to have) the definite article to make a definite generic sentence with mass nouns in Romance languages?

Does the definite article in Romance languages not require individuality/boundedness? Or maybe Romance language speakers see mass nouns like water as separated substances?

When making a definite generic sentence, what does it refer to? In Germanic languages, it refers to the "representative individual" of the noun. When saying "L'eau est un liquide.", what water does the sentence refer to?

Answer 1

As a native speaker of French, my feeling is that your premise that the phenomenon is primarily of cognitive origin is most likely false. It is not the case, I think, that I conceptualize water differently when thinking/speaking in French or in English, it is rather that the same cognitive process are not syntactically encoded in the same ways in these two languages. Common nouns in French syntactically require an article, no matter what, so speakers have to resort to some choices when none is especially obvious from a cognitive or referential point of view.

For pure predicative assertions as L'eau est liquide, Le tigre est un animal no choice is possible as far as I can tell: the definite article has to be used. But as soon as one leaves this simple context, my intuition is not so good. For instance Un chimpanzé adore les bananes (A chimp loves bananas) and Le chimpanzé adore les bananes (The chimp loves bananas) both seem equally degraded with respect to the perfect Les chipanzés adorent les bananes but nevertheless acceptable to my ear (with the meaning Chimps love bananas). Even predication relations which are somewhat qualified open choices: L'eau est liquide but both L'eau à 0 degré est solide and Une eau à 0 degré est solide (with a subtle difference in meanings that is not so easy to describe).

Note finally that some Romance language, e.g Spanish, have an extra syntactic mark that can be adduced to an indefinite noun (this is sometimes called differential object marking) with subtle impacts on definiteness, specificity and the syntactic properties of the object.

Answer 2

I read in an article by Roehrs that in Romance articles have a morphosyntactic function, they are there mostly to agree with the noun they are modifying in gender, number and case (in Romanian), whereas in Germanic they also have the semanrtic-pragmatic reasons you mentioned. :)

Answer 3

I am not sure that all Romance languages use articles in the same way.

For pure predicative assertions as L'eau est liquide, Le tigre est un animal no choice is possible as far as I can tell: the definite article has to be used. But as soon as one leaves this simple context, my intuition is not so good. For instance Un chimpanzé adore les bananes (A chimp loves bananas) and Le chimpanzé adore les bananes (The chimp loves bananas) both seem equally degraded with respect to the perfect Les chipanzés adorent les bananes but nevertheless acceptable to my ear (with the meaning Chimps love bananas).

For instance, in Portuguese, um chimpanzé gosta de bananas usually has not this generic meaning of "chimps love bananas", and would be used in different contexts. And o chimpanzé gosta de bananas is at least ambiguous, and I think would be used more like as "this chimp loves bananas". Furthermore, chimpanzé gosta de banana (for some reason, now the object needs going in the singular, too) is colloquial, not standard (which would be chimpanzés gostam de banana(s), with the object accepting both singular and plural. And, finally, as you see, banana in any case rejects articles. And so the usage is different from French, albeit both being Romance language.

On further thought, it has to be different: French has three sets of articles, definite, indefinite, and partitive, while Portuguese (as English) has only definite and indefinite articles. Portuguese expresses the French idea of partitive by an "article 0" (though by no means this is the only use of the absence of an article). Colloquially:

Me dá o pão. - Give me (this precise loaf of) bread.

Me dá um pão. - Give me a loaf of bread.

Me dá pão. - Give me (some) bread.

But then pão is used both as a countable noun (in which it means "loaf of bread" and as a non-countable noun (in which it means "bread", the substance of which loaves of bread are made).

Anyway, my feeling is that the use of articles in Portuguese if by far more "syntactical" than "semantic". Some constructions require definite articles, others require indefinite articles, some require no article at all. This is far from consistent, as probably best shown by the usage of country names, where it has absolutely no semantic value:

Venho da França. - I come from France.

Venho do Vietnã. - I come from Vietnam.

Venho de Portugal. - I come from Portugal.

And it is probably unpredictable. For instance, while the opposition definite article/no article implies the opposition between countable/non-countable nouns in some cases, in other cases it marks the opposition between a person itself and the work of that person:

Gosto do José - I like (this guy) Joseph.

Gosto da Bete - I like (this lady) Beth.

Gosto de Mozart - I like Mozart. (the music, not necessarily the man).

Gosto de Jane Austen - I like Jane Austen. (the books, etc.)

Other contradistictions possibly exist, but it is not easy to spot the illogicalities in one's own language.