Re: Origins of French partitive, pas, etc.

On Dec 31, 9:32 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...
I've been meaning to mention this for weeks. There's currently a learn-
a-language ad on radio where a guy boasts he can order in French and
astonishes his friends by saying to the waiter, "Je voudrais le poulet
et le riz." (Which strikes me as wrong on at least three counts.)
Would you buy a language-instruction system from that company?

But that sentence is perfectly correct. What is your problem?
When you look at a menu in English, you also could say (and should) "I
want the chicken" (meaning *the*, definite one that they have)
.

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