210 CHAPTER 4. PARTICLES
example of this would be for instance:
”There is a book on the table.”
There will be people who after a while start to ignore that this is a
proper sentence, and instead say things like:
”There is a book on the table (as opposed to the floor, or the couch,
or the shelf, or whatever context it might be contrasted to).”
It should always be remembered that disambiguates. It doesn’t
just specify a location or point/frame in time, but also adds a contrast be-
tween this location or time and every other. This is a very important dis-
tinction that you should try not to forget. If you’re tempted to use , first
ask yourself if you actually need to disambiguate anything. If not, just use
. Don’t use the additional because you think it ”sounds good”, be-
cause it adds a lot of extra meaning that you probably don’t intend to add.
That said, a proper use would for instance be:
”(We) don’t have those kind of things here.”
In this sentence, the makes sense, because no doubt there will be
other places where ”those kind of things” can in fact be found. Just not
”here”.
- Simultaneous action
This particle is similar to in that it is used to talk about two actions
taking place in succession. It can be translated as ’the minute [X], [Y]’ or
’no sooner than [X], [Y]’. It’s a relatively rare particle, but then that’s what
enrichment is all about. It follows
constructions:
”No sooner than they had graduated, they got married.”
This is considered a literary particle.