Kikongo-Kituba is regarded as lacking a definite article, although the demonstratives yayi and yina can be rendered by 'the' as well.Discourse context determines whether they are interpreted as demonstratives or definite articles. Maybe definiteness can be correlated with anaphoric use, but this has not been investigated. The demonstrative is not obligatory with definite noun phrases; a singular noun often has definite reference unless it combines with the quantifier 'one'.