Dual Indefinites – SAE or Common?

[Kuchigakatai]

I was wondering if, outside of IE, there is an inverse correlation between having definiteness marking and having a dedicated "both". It seems to me that, if you have a definite article, "the two (of)" conveys a similar meaning. Basque uses either biak "the two" or bai ... bai ... "yes ... yes ... ". And even in Spanish "los dos" is often used instead of "ambos" in colloquial speech.

Well, I wasn't claiming it was exception-less universal, just that it might be a tendency perhaps. It was more of a guess than something I have any hard evidence for. And I did say outside IE, since the claim above was that IE as a family favours having "both" in general.

Mandarin doesn't have articles and yet it still uses the number two before a noun to express the determiner "both Xs". So "two CL [noun]" (CL = classifier) is ambiguous for both meanings.

兩個選擇 liǎng ge xuǎnzé
two CL choice/option
'the two choices, both choices; (some) two choices'

For the pronoun "both (of them)", you find a similar ambiguity between a number of identification ("the two of them") and a partitive ("two from among a larger group"):

兩個 liǎng ge
two CL
'the two of them, both; two among them'

However, for the both the determiner and the pronoun, you can specify which meaning is meant with syntax. Using a demonstrative makes the phrase definite ("both Xs", "both"), and there is also the option of attaching 兩個 liǎng ge after a personal or demonstrative pronoun or after a noun phrase for some limited human nouns. For the partitive meaning ("two Xs", "two among them"), you can repeat the referred group in a postpositional phrase.

那兩個 nà liǎng ge - DIST two CL
'those two, both' (animate or inanimate)

這兩個藝人 zhè liǎng ge yìrén - PROX two CL art-person
'these two artists, both of these artists'
這兩個選擇 zhè liǎng ge xuǎnzé - PROX two CL choice
'these two choices, both of these choices'

他們兩個 tāmen liǎng ge - 3PL two CL
'the two of them, both of them' (neutral register, animate)
這姐妹兩個 zhè jiěmèi liǎng ge - PROX elder.sister-younger.sister two CL
'these two sisters, both of these sisters'

versus, with a postpositional phrase,

他們中的兩個 tāmen zhōng de liǎng ge - 3PL in.the.middle.of GEN two CL
他們中間兩個 tāmen zhōngjiān liǎng ge - 3PL in.the.middle.of two CL
'two among them'