Re: THEORY: The fourth person

From:    Danny Wier <dawiertx@...>
> How exactly does the so-called 'fourth person' work in Athabaskan
> languages like Navajo (Dine), and do any other languages have it?
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"). Algonquian languages also have a distinction between
proximate and obviative forms, quite separate from the X-actants,
which select out discourse-functionally salient and nonsalient
entities in a discourse. In West Greenlandic, third and fourth persons
select out two separate non-1st-non-2nd actants, one of which (I forget
which at the moment) is coreferential to the argument of a higher
verb.

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Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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