Re: Bastet Relay Translation Web Finally Up!!

En réponse à "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>:

>
> LOL!!
>
> Well, one of the obscure features in my conlang is that the pronouns are
> *not* divided into 1st/2nd/3rd person. Rather, it's divided into a first
> person singular, the intimate pronouns, and the distant pronouns. The
> distant pronouns can act both as 3rd person and 2nd person; the intimate
> pronouns can be the 1st person plural or the 2nd person *or* the 3rd
> person.
>
> Basically, instead of delineating pronouns according to person, it
> regards
> the speaker (1st person singular) as the unique reference point, and
> then
> classifies everyone/everything else into two successive layers: the
> "intimate" things and the "distant" things. The intimate pronouns are
> used
> for everyone/everything the speaker considers are "with" him or part of
> his inner circle, etc.. The distant pronouns are used for everything
> else
> -- the things that the speaker considers at a distance from him.
>
That's not unlike the pronominal system of Astou. Astou doesn't cut between 1st,
2nd and 3rd person, but it has a "I", which can be translated as I or we,
depending on whether somebody talks for themselves or for the group they are
part of, a "non-I" which can be you or he/she/it, depending on the empathy of
the speaker, a "non-person", which is usually he/she/it/they, an "inclusive we",
an "exclusive we", and a "plural non-I", which puts emphasis on the presence of
different "non-I". Quite a strange system, which doesn't seem very symmetrical.
Indeed, its use can prove to be quite tricky.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr