Re: THEORY: questions

En réponse à Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>:

> Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> > I'd agree, if you gave me an example of one of those Japanese words
> used
> > normally pronoun-like in a sentence where it's not used pronoun-like
> (that's to
> > say, where it doesn't refer to a participant of the conversation).
>
> "Watakushi" can be used to mean "private" as in _watakushigoto_
> "private
> matter".  Of course, this is still a relatively new pronoun, but still
> goes to show that the distinction can be less than rigid.  Also, my
> kanji dictionary lists "manservant" under "boku" (even under the
> reading
> "boku"), but my Japanese-English dictionary only says "I (used by
> males)".  Also, regular nouns and names can be used in the place of
> pronouns.  This is why I consider the pronouns to be a specialized
> class
> of nouns in Japanese.  I do agree that it's excessive to say that
> Japanese has no pronouns, unless you define pronouns as having to act
> exactly like in Western languages, which I'd say is too narrow.
>
> Also, "kare" and "kanojo" ("he" and "she") CAN, and often are, used to
> mean "Boyfriend" and "girlfriend".  A person I know mentioned that she
> used to be confused when Japanese people would ask her online "kare
> wa?", until she learned about that usage.  :-)  I'm not sure if any of
> the other first or second person pronouns can still be used in
> non-pronominal uses.
>
> > Also,
> > pronouns don't behave like nouns when it comes to pluralization.
> "hana" can
> > mean flower or flowers, but AFAIK "anata" can never be used for "you
> (plural)".
> > For a plural "you", you're obliged to use "anatatachi".
>
> Or anatagata.  True.  However, this is merely a hierarchical feature.
> From what I understand, the plural suffixes are never used with
> inanimates, are optional with humans (I'm not sure about non-human
> animates), and obligatory with pronouns.  The use of those suffixes is
> not the same with all type of nouns, so it's not surprising that one
> specialized class of nouns, i.e., pronouns, should make it obligatory.
>
Well, you've convinced me! Under those circumstances, I think we can definitely
say that pronouns in Japanese are nothing else than a subclass of nouns, or
that it doesn't have pronouns _per se_.

I love this list: you learn so many things from it!

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

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