Re: THEORY: The fourth person

Joe wrote:
> 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'.
Or "one" when it's used as a pronoun.

Is that called a "hypothetical pronoun"?