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Re: THEORY: The fourth person

From:Joe <joe@...>
Date:Thursday, April 29, 2004, 5:37
Danny Wier wrote:

>From: "Jean-François Colson" <fa597525@...> > > > >>From: "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> >> >> > > > >>>Lots of languages have something like it. I can't actually speak >>>to how they work in Athapaskan languages, but in Algonquian languages, >>>there are specific verb forms for an unspecified and generic entity >>>(noted as "X"). >>> >>> >>Is that somewhat similar to the French pronoun "on", the German "man", the >>Dutch "men", etc.? >> >> > >I don't think so in the case of French; don't know about German or Dutch. >The French pronoun _on_ corresponds to third person masculine singular; the >verb is not conjugated any differently than if the subject was an _il_ or >_elle_. But I could be wrong. French verb grammar behaves as though it wants >to be an Amerind language. (Or should I say, French is essentially a Romance >language with Algonquian verb grammar?) > > >
No, I don't think so. French 'on' corresponds to the unspecific 'you' in English. As in 'you can do X here'. Well, as well as 'we'.

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Garth Wallace <gwalla@...>