Re : Question on personal inflections

Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 26/06/99 09:41:17  , Nik a =E9crit :

> Question: Is it reasonable to have a language whose verbs inflect for
>  number and animacy, but NOT for person?  In my current incarnation of
>  Eastern, verbs inflect for voice, mood (both as prefixes) and for
>  singular-animate, singular-inanimate, dual-animate, dual-inanimate,
>  plural-animate, and plural-inanimate.  Is this a reasonable distinction
>  to make?  My thought is that nouns replaced pronouns ("my soul" for "I",
>  etc.; analogous to the origin of free pronouns in W.), which naturally
>  would take third person agreement, and thus first and second persons
>  were lost.
i think sumerian did a bit like that. partial or total reduplication are now=20
considered to have some connection with number and animacy of actors (as wel=
l=20
as frequency and intensity apparently). tahitian also does that to some=20
extent with partial and total duplication. but still both has/had pronouns.=20
and what about doing like japanese and replace or support pronouns with=20
directional verbs specially designed to confuse everyone ?

mathias