Re: THEORY: The fourth person

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Brown" <ray.brown@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 7:45 PM
Subject: Re: THEORY: The fourth person


> On Thursday, April 29, 2004, at 12:28 AM, Danny Wier wrote:
>
> [snip]
> > I wonder if there could be such thing as a FIFTH person... maybe in
> > bitransitive verbs, like something translating to "he sent him to him"?
>
> Latin would use three _different_ pronouns (or two different if the
> subject pronoun were not expressed); exactly which of its several
> demonstrative/3rd person pronouns would depend upon context.
>
> But no one has found it helpful to analyze Latin in terms of 4th & 5th
> persons. There must be more to it than just having different pronouns for
> 'he', 'him' and 'him' in the above sentence.
> ==========================================================================
>
> On Thursday, April 29, 2004, at 01:52 AM, Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
> > Hi!
> >
> > E.g. Westgreenlandic (yes, I am currently sincerely addicted to it):
> >
> >    Nanummit  nerineqarpoq. - He is eaten by a polar bear.
> >    Nanunnit  nerineqarpoq. - He is eaten by my polar bear.
> >    Nanunniit nerineqarpoq. - He is eaten by your polar bear.
> >    Nanuminit nerineqarpoq. - He is eaten by his(own) polar bear.
> >    Nanuanit  nerineqarpoq. - He is eaten by his(someone else's) polar
> > bear.
> >
>
>
I can't resist all this about people being eaten by polar bears - they have
them in Omeina too. But they're ergative.
Gama belkartunte nain - he is eaten by a polar bear
Gama belkartudente nain - he is eaten by my polar bear
Gama belkarturete nain - he is eaten by your polar bear
Gama belkartugete nain - he is eaten by everyone's polar bear (just to give
the 4th person a chance!)
Mike