117. The indefinite article comes from _ūnus_, which seems to have been
occasionally so used even in classic Latin:--
ü(n)s üna
ü(n) üna
118. (1) The definite article comes from unaccented _ĭlle_, which,
being used as a proclitic, regularly lost its first syllable (§ 19).
_Ille_ (✱_ĭllī_), _ĭllum_, _ĭllī_, _ĭllos_, _ĭlla_, _ĭllas_ became
respectively le (li), lo, li or lhi,[90] los, la, las. Le, lo, li, lhi,
la frequently elided their vowel before another vowel (l’an, l’arma),
becoming l or lh. Furthermore, le, lo, li, lhi, los, in the intertonic
position after a vowel (vé lo páire), regularly lost their vowel (vẹl
páire)[91]; and, by analogy, la and las were sometimes reduced to l
and ls. We have, then, beside the full forms, the proclitics l, lh,
and the enclitics l, lh, ls. Inasmuch as l might be vocalized before
a dental,[92] the enclitics l and ls sometimes became u and us (a͡u
portęr, e͡uz dias antix).
(2) The particles e and que, with the enclitic l, formed combinations
ẹl and quẹl. Quẹl, being understood as _qu’el_, gave rise to a form
ẹl.
(3) In the f. nom. sg. there is a form li or lhi, which is hard to
explain. The most likely theory is that when the masculine _quī_ took
the place of the feminine _quæ_ (see § 133), the masculine ✱_ĭllī_ came
to be used beside _ĭlla_,[93] for the feminine. The Provençal feminine
li (lhi) which resulted was strongly supported by the analogy of a
feminine possessive mi, beside ma (see § 127).[94]
(4) The regular forms are, therefore, the following:--
MASCULINE FEMININE
Sg. {_nom._: lẹ li l ẹl la li lhi l lh
{_obj._: lọ l u ẹl la l
Pl. {_nom._: li lhi l lh las
{_obj._: lọs ls us las ls
In many texts the objective forms lo, los, ls are used in the
nominative.
1. The m. obj. sg. _le_, obj. pl. _les_, which occur in a few
texts, are doubtless French. So is the enclitic form _s_ for
_ls_ or _us_: _de s_, _entre s_, _e s_.
2. The enclitic forms combine as follows with the prepositions
_a_, _con_, _de_, _en_, _entre_, _iosta_, _per_, _sus_, and
with the conjunctions _e_, _ni_, _o_, _que_, _si_: _al_ _au_
_als_ _aus_, _col_, _del_ _deu_ _dels_ _deus_ (_des_), _enl_
_el_ _els_ _eus_, _entrels_, _iostal_, _pel_ _pels_, _sul_
_suls_; _eil_ (= _e lhi_) _el_ (= _e lo_), _nils_, _oill_ (=
_o lhi_), _quel_, _sil_. They combine freely with other words:
_eral_ (= _era le_), _fals_ (= _fa los_), etc.
119. In some southwestern and some southeastern dialects we find forms
sọ, sọs, sa, sas, coming from _ĭpse_.