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Re: THEORY: English Pronouns (was Re: THEORY: Ergativity and polypersonalism)

From:Rob Haden <magwich78@...>
Date:Monday, January 24, 2005, 22:51
On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:25:39 +0100, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
wrote:

>And the pronoun in the second example "should" be 'who', otherwise you >have the aforementioned stylistic clash.
I thought that pronouns as objects of prepositions *always* took the accusative form. But I could be wrong. :b
>I think this is what happened in Italian, where the third-person >masculine/feminine singular and third-person plural personal pronouns >are usually "lui"/"lei" and "loro" (both originally accusative) in >colloquial speech, even for the nominative (which "should be" >egli/ella and essi/esse). > >For the polite form, I think this is universal: always "Lei", never "Ella". > >See also http://www.manuscritto.it/Lui_lei_essi_loro.html and >http://www.learnitaly.com/italiano_parlato.htm .
Great example! :) I've thought about doing some kind of future English that has been "globalized" and thus gutted of its few remaining inflections. So, for example: 1sg mi 2sg yu or ya 3sg-m him 3sg-f ha or shi 1pl as 2pl yal 3pl dem I also imagine that such a "future English" would acquire one or more new devices for distinguishing verbs and nouns from each other. Again, looking at how modern-day Creoles do it is probably the best idea. - Rob

Replies

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>