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?)
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"?