Walking on the Grammaticalization Path of the Definite Article

German proper names can be divided into two large classes, i.e. one with and one without an obligatory definite article. It will be shown that this article is part of a classifier system, which provides semantic information about the referent. Furthermore, the inherited three-gender system in combination with the presence or absence of the article is used to create a new system of six proper name classes. This paper deals with a diachronic change where so-called junk is transferred into a new cl