Re: No pronoun, no article
From: | Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> |
Date: | Sunday, October 19, 2003, 0:49 |
David Peterson wrote:
> I'm talking to you > David's talking to Erin (or whoever).
> Do you want to come outside? > Does Erin want to come outside?
> Give me that! > Give David that!
Except, what about strangers? How would you ask someone "What's your
name?", or how would you translate "you" in, for example, a contract? I
suppose one could use a phrase like "listener" or "reader", but I
suspect that eventually that would become a genuine 2nd person pronoun,
even if this language still tends to avoid it when possible.
And, again, using names for 1st person could be potentially ambiguous.
What if there's another person named David? And another person named
Erin? Then a phrase like "David's talking to Erin" could be ambiguous
between "I'm speaking to you", "I'm speaking to Erin [the other Erin]",
"David [the other David]'s speaking to you" or "David [the other
David]'s speaking to Erin [the other Erin]"
--
"There's no such thing as 'cool'. Everyone's just a big dork or nerd,
you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." -
overheard
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