Re: Amerindia [was: Re: Workshops Review #7]

| -----Original Message-----
| From: daniel andreasson
| Subject: Re: Amerindia [was: Re: Workshops Review #7]
|
| Joseph Fatula:
| > > What is the Navajo fourth person?
|
| Which is très cool. I have a proximate/obviative in my
| Amerind conlang Piata. Which is what you're talking about
| above. But I didn't stop at an obviative (or second third
| person). I also have a *third* third person,
8< snip >8

        Yep, mine has that two.
        In Tekwari (or the complete name Tekwaropa'hohu'c`ae`n means "they
are talking about/around now-ish"), there is a 3rd and 4th person. 3rd
person is "third person present or nearby, someone you could say 'Hey' and
they'd answer without shouting". 4th person is "someone absent or far away,
or someone removed from the present situation".
        Someone around a corner would be 3rd person. Someone just on the
other side of a wall that you have difficulty talking through would be 4th.
        In discourse or telling a story, they often act as a topical and
obviate 3rd person. The
3rd person is the protagonist, or someone highly relevant (perhaps the foil
or antagonist), while the 4th person is "other people". However, this is
seen as a "literary technique", and in colloquial dialogue sounds rather
odd.
        In other words, if you say:
         "Oh, Bob? He's at the market. He didn't want to go, but I asked him
to pick up some fresh greens for dinner. He didn't want to go in case
Bob-Bob was there." (Tekwari haven't invented names yet...)
        That would all be 4th person. However, if you launch into a story
about why Bob doesn't like Bob-Bob, and how Bob-Bob-Bob and Bob-Female were
involved, Bob would likely be "elevated" to 3rd person so he is topically
distinctive.
        (From a cultural perspective, by going into the long discourse, you
are calling Bob's presence, and so part of him is there. Or, at least, using
3rd person makes it feel like part of him is there.)

        Mike

______________________________________
Mike Karapcik   *       Tampa, FL
Network Analyst *       USF campus
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Research Center
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B+++/R:Wic A+ E+ N1 Is/d K ia-:+ p-- s- m o P S----

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