[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Articles are inversely associated with inflectional case in Indo-European

## Details

**Authors** Goldstein

**Year** 2026

**Publisher** Language

**Discipline** Linguistics

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1017/s0097850726000147) 
10.1017/s0097850726000147

## In authors' words

### What they found (results)

A Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of 94 Indo-European languages found smaller case-marking inventories robustly predict a higher probability of definite or indefinite articles, crossing 50% predicted-article-probability once case systems shrink to roughly 3-4 cases.

## Commentary

### In short

Case-marking and articles function as alternative substructures for encoding the same referential function within one grammatical system, so as one part shrinks the other expands to compensate.

**Patterns it shows** S, R

**Added** 2026-08-28

**How to cite this** Goldstein (2026). Articles are inversely associated with inflectional case in Indo-European. Language.