Bible versions and Miskito articles

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to examine the syntactic properties of the particle “ba”, whose role in Miskito has been tested against that of the English and Spanish definite articles. We will see that the study of the relevant data suggests that the Miskito particle “ba” is not properly an article, but another type of grammatical element. We hypothesize that its ability to function equivalently to the Spanish definite article is, so to speak, a secondary property of that element. Investigation of the relevant data will lead us to touch on several neighboring issues, such as that of the singular indeterminate article “kum” and the various ways of forming the plural of it. Our goal is to contribute to a better understanding of this elementary area - the determination of nouns - of Miskito grammar, which should be clarified both for the purposes of bilingual schooling and for translation practice.