Ondo, how do you distinguish between Give me a book and Give me the book?

Wasn't Zamenhof convinced of the usefulness of 'la' in a dream where he imagined someone in a forest saying Ĉu vi vidis la urson? and realised that this wasn't the same question as Ĉu vi vidis urson?

As a general point, just because some languages manage without some feature, it doesn't follow that that feature may not be useful.

Is it entirely true that Esperanto has no indefinite article?

Unu familio - Parizanoj, kompreneble! - kuris anhelante (al la trajno)
Unu vidvino havis du filinojn
Unu tagon venis ankaŭ du trompantoj, kiuj diris

This isn't really about quantity.

Alkanadi:Is it true that Chinese does not have the definite and indefinite articles? For example, the - a - an

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sudanglo:Is it entirely true that Esperanto has no indefinite article?

Unu familio - Parizanoj, kompreneble! - kuris anhelante (al la trajno)
Unu vidvino havis du filinojn
Unu tagon venis ankaŭ du trompantoj, kiuj diris

This isn't really about quantity.

In Russian you would also probably use "one" here, depending on the context (and perhaps in English also!). Are these Z quotes? More and more I appreciate to what extent Zamenhof's use of Esperanto is influenced by his Slavic background.

"One family ran ..." Just one, some particular family. But is this actually trying to express indefiniteness?

sudanglo:Ondo, how do you distinguish between Give me a book and Give me the book?

Wasn't Zamenhof convinced of the usefulness of 'la' in a dream where he imagined someone in a forest saying Ĉu vi vidis la urson? and realised that this wasn't the same question as Ĉu vi vidis urson?

As a general point, just because some languages manage without some feature, it doesn't follow that that feature may not be useful.

Is it entirely true that Esperanto has no indefinite article?

Unu familio - Parizanoj, kompreneble! - kuris anhelante (al la trajno)
Unu vidvino havis du filinojn
Unu tagon venis ankaŭ du trompantoj, kiuj diris

This isn't really about quantity.

I like that bear story, even if it might not be true. The fuss over this seems very unwarranted, as omitting an article in most cases does not have a significant impact on meaning, but it does serve an important purpose in such situations as seeing "the bear "as opposed to "(a) bear". I see no reason to cater to using highly variable context and/or helper words when the use of a definite article can cover most of this obviously useful distinction. It's not like we're talking about the "la", "el", "las", and "los" of Spanish here; it is one simple article to be used where it is needed.

tempodivalse:Ondo, how do you distinguish between Give me a book and Give me the book?

I do not speak Finnish - but perhaps this is simply a distinction that isn't important for the language, or which is intuited via other means?

For instance, Slavic verbs feature aspect. A monoglot Slav might think that some essential information would be lost without aspect; but if we look at Esperanto or English, we see this isn't usually the case. Other cues are available, say to distinguish between eating+finishing, and eating+being interrupted. I think it is similar with the definite article.

kaŝperanto:It's not like we're talking about the "la", "el", "las", and "los" of Spanish here; it is one simple article to be used where it is needed.

Well, I'm not sure it's so simple. PAG devotes at least five whole pages to the subject - and even then it does not account for all observed usages (or even contradicts them).

English speakers, I think, seriously underestimate the complexity of articles. My mother knows English for 30+ years now, she even taught it in university, and still is not totally comfortable with them.

What makes Esperanto's article easier, in my view, is that often both its inclusion and its omission sound acceptable - in contrast to English or Spanish. This is why I find PAG's (and others' ) attitude erroneous - instead of trying to prescribe all instances where the article should be used, it is better to just explain where it is essential (e.g. where all proficient speakers would use it) and provide general guidelines as to where "la" might be used elsewhere - e.g., to point out a particular object rather than a general one. This will make the article less daunting for Asians or Slavs.

This means usage of "la" will vary from speaker to speaker, and that's OK - in the same way that it's OK for some people to say Mi estas cxe la universitato and for others to say mi estas en la universitato. Rule 1 of the Fundamento is not pedantic and is clearly open to much interpretation.

Tempodivalse:

kaŝperanto:It's not like we're talking about the "la", "el", "las", and "los" of Spanish here; it is one simple article to be used where it is needed.

Well, I'm not sure it's so simple. PAG devotes at least five whole pages to the subject - and even then it does not account for all observed usages (or even contradicts them)

English speakers, I think, seriously underestimate the complexity of articles. My mother knows English for 30+ years now, she even taught it in university, and still is not totally comfortable with them.

What makes Esperanto's article easier, in my view, is that often both its inclusion and its omission sound acceptable - in contrast to English or Spanish. This is why I find PAG's (and others' ) attitude erroneous - instead of trying to prescribe all instances where the article should be used, it is better to just explain where it is essential (e.g. where all proficient speakers would use it) and provide general guidelines as to where "la" might be used elsewhere - e.g., to point out a particular object rather than a general one. This will make the article less daunting for Asians or Slavs.

This means usage of "la" will vary from speaker to speaker, and that's OK - in the same way that it's OK for some people to say Mi estas cxe la universitato and for others to say mi estas en la universitato. Rule 1 of the Fundamento is not pedantic and is clearly open to much interpretation.

I completely agree. Most of what I know about (Esperanto) article usage I've picked up from reading and/or forum discussions. I have no doubt that English/Spanish helps with understanding its usage. Even as an English native I don't miss the indefinite article, and as you said in many cases it doesn't really sound wrong to omit the definite article where I would normally expect it.

Your approach is exactly what we should be doing, and I'm glad that Z left it mostly open, because other than the particular vs. general case the article's usage seems very arbitrary for me. I know in English that "I am going to the store" is the correct way to inform you of my plans, even if neither you nor I know which store I'm going to. There's nothing grammatically wrong with "I'm going to a store", and it is actually more correct if the specific store is not known, but you're not going to find that being commonly used. In English this would be jarring, but, as you pointed out, this type of minor variation is completely normal in Esperanto, and we don't want it to be any other way.

I think that this benefit of Esperanto is very underestimated. People spend decades learning English or other national languages and still need to rote memorize these arbitrary rules, just to sound "normal". You could even speak with perfect grammar and a flawless accent, but if you don't use the right canned phrases when you are supposed to we will know instantly that you are a foreigner.

Tempodivalse:I do not speak Finnish - but perhaps this is simply a distinction that isn't important for the language, or which is intuited via other means?

For instance, Slavic verbs feature aspect. A monoglot Slav might think that some essential information would be lost without aspect; but if we look at Esperanto or English, we see this isn't usually the case. Other cues are available, say to distinguish between eating+finishing, and eating+being interrupted. I think it is similar with the definite article.

Very accurate observation.

The set of features which are marked on nouns or verbs vary between the different languages. The existence of a certain feature in one language, doesn't mean that other languages cannot work without this feature.
For instance in some Spanish thread of this forum, a user said that the difference between "ser" and "estar" (both "esti" in Eo) is so fundamental that its lack is really a problem.
Some might argue that a V-T-distinction is very important, or the difference between singular and plural "you".
On the lexical level, I have never heard a German speaker worry about the fact that "dividi" means both "divide" (teilen) and "share" (teilen), but in the English forum you can find several pages on this topic, thinking of new ways how to say "share" (kunhavi among other solutions to this problem which doesn't exist).
Other languages have a feature for animacity, sentience, honor, etc. All of which are not present in Esperanto.
Other languages have a strict morphological distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs, Esperanto hasn't.
Other languages have no feature for plurality, definiteness (or have more than two categories), tense, aspect, etc, etc.

The fact that one given language must mark a certain feature, doesn't mean that this feature is indispensable in other languages in general and Esperanto in particular.

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sudanglo:Is it entirely true that Esperanto has no indefinite article?

If the Fundamento has any normative character at all, then the answer is yes.

LLZ FE B.1:1. There is no indefinite, and only one definite, article, la, for all genders, numbers, and cases.

Tempodivalse:

tempodivalse:Ondo, how do you distinguish between Give me a book and Give me the book?

I do not speak Finnish - but perhaps this is simply a distinction that isn't important for the language, or which is intuited via other means?

Disclaimer: Not a native.

Give me a book - Anna minulle kirja, is the same as give me the book. To say a particular book, you would use that book which can be expressed, anna minulle se kirja, or if you are pointing, anna minulle tuo kirja.

sudanglo:Ondo, how do you distinguish between Give me a book and Give me the book?

Why do you ask? Did I say something against using the article in Esperanto? (I suppose you are not asking about Finnish.)

Did you read the sentences I gave? I thought they are a pertinent example of several dispensable articles. Let me repeat:

La uzado de la artikolo estas tia sama, kiel en la aliaj lingvoj. La personoj, por kiuj la uzado de la artikolo prezentas malfacilaĵon, povas en la unua tempo tute ĝin ne uzi. (Z, laŭ la Fundamenta Krestomatio.)

So you do insist that omitting any one of the articles in these sentences would change the meaning, like in your examples with a book/the book, urson/la urson. Does everybody here agree with Sudanglo?

nornen:The fact that one given language must mark a certain feature, doesn't mean that this feature is indispensable in other languages in general and Esperanto in particular.

Quite so. Languages differ in what features they must mark, what they force you to distinguish, not so much in what they can distinguish.

We are discussing Esperanto here but, just to make sure, this is how we say in Finnish:

Word order is the simplest way of distinguishing between definite and indefinite, if such distinction is needed. Using other determiners (like tiu in Esperanto) is also possible, and then we have some 15 cases...

Give me a book. Anna minulle kirja. (give to-me book)

Give me the book. Anna kirja minulle. (give book to-me)

It is not unusual to omit the word minulle = to me: Anna vasara! (give hammer), "Give me a/the hammer", "Hand me a/the hammer."