Person marking on nouns?
From: | Estel Telcontar <estel_telcontar@...> |
Date: | Saturday, February 21, 2004, 20:45 |
I got thinking recently about wat if there wer a language that markt
person on nouns, indicating the person-ness of who or what it referd
to.
Most nouns woud have third person marking, indicating that they refer
to neither speaker nor audience. So in a sentence like "The cat is on
the mat", both nouns woud be in third person (assuming you'r not
talking ta the cat.)
First person marking on a noun woud be used wen a noun refers to the
speaker - for example, in translations ov the expression in the Old
Testament where one refers ta oneself as "your servant" when addressing
a superior, such az God or the king. Thus, in the instance where the
boy Samuel sez ta God in one ov the first chapterz of 2 Samuel "Speak,
for your servant is listening": here, a translation in this language
woud have (your) servant markt with first person marking, indicating
that wen Samuel sed "your servant", he was refering ta himself.
Second person marking on a noun woud be used when a noun refers ta the
audience. Thus, if someone were to say in this langwage "you linguists
are crazy", they woud put it as "linguists-2nd.person are crazy". And
it occurd ta me that Vocative case is rather like 2nd person marking on
a noun: it refers to the person you'r talking to; altho I'm not sure it
covers all the functions of a 2nd person marking (but that may vary
from one langwage to another).
Anyone know ov eny langwages, real or con, that do enything like this?
(I got thinking about it becuz in my all-verb language, the inflected
form that fulfils nominal functions has person marking much like this.)
-Estel
______________________________________________________________________
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
Replies