> From: Danny Wier <dawier@...>
> Subject: Re: THEORY: Languages divided by politics and religion
> Another question comes to mind -- could one consider a creole or pidgin
> another form or even dialect of the "pure" language? Jamaican, Chinese or
> the so-called "Gullah" of South Carolina, or even what I think is called
> "African-American English" or "Black Vernacular Englsh" (which was once
> called Ebonics). (The last is definitely an ethnolect of American
English,
> not a pidgin or creole).
I think the normal term is "African-American Vernacular English" (or AAVE
for short).
> From: Marcus Smith <smithma@...>
> Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_L=E1adan_and_woman's_speak?=
>
> In the distant future, these could become obligatory for all nouns. They
> would then become stock phrases ("sheets of paper" already is, I think).
> The "of" would be unnecessary so our decendents would just say "sheets
paper"
> and "bundles hay".
I don't think the 'of' will so much be unnecessary as it will just become
_silent._ (That make sense?) In spoken English already it's "sheetza
paper".
> From: John Cowan <cowan@...>
> Subject: Re: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_L=E1adan_and_woman's_speak?=
>
> Marcus Smith scripsit:
>
> > I'm not sure what you mean by irrelevant. I don't see why gender in
German
> > and
> > Spanish is so "relevant". They don't need it for any special reason
that
> > English lacks. The system is just there, so the speakers have to abide
by
> > it.
>
> Gender does have certain advantages. Sometimes it allows pronouns
> not to be ambiguous. Consider the English sentence "He took the
> manuscript out of the briefcase and threw it in the sea". Threw
> what, the manuscript or the briefcase?
>
> In French, one is masc. and one is fem., and the pronoun disambiguates
> perfectly. Of course this doesn't happen every time!
Are there any languages, (natural or homemade) that have a sort of double
pronoun... ack, I don't know how to say it.
Here:
"He told him the truth about his mother."
From this in English we can gather that 'he' and 'him' are different people,
but out of context we have no idea whether 'his' refers to the 'he' man or
the 'him' man. To make it clear in English would want something like:
"He told him the truth about his (John's) mother."
but would it be common (or practical?) for a language to mark _his_ to match
the relevant pronoun, like:
"He1 told him2 the truth about him2's mother."
...
I should try that in a conlang.
*Muke!