Re: Interesting Pronouns.

Iltârer Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

Iltârer has an unusual system of personal pronouns, connected intimately
with sentence structure. Every sentence (except short exclamations and the
like) contains a personal pronoun as its subject. The pronoun may stand
alone, or may immediately follow its antecedent. The antecedent is almost
always stated explicitly at first use of a pronoun, even in the first and
second person. This is because the Iltârer concept of personal identity is
very fluid. One may choose to identify with another person or even an
inanimate object, and use the first-person pronoun. This is more common in
poetic and religious discourse, but is not unknown in casual speech. The
second person is considered customary for all persons, present or absent,
probably deriving from an ancient custom of symbolically "inviting in"
those of whom you speak in order to check the inclination toward gossip.

First Person

The first person refers to oneself, or more broadly to any person or object
with which one chooses to identify. The Iltâr believe that it is possible
(and frequently desirable) to identify oneself with the entire cosmos, as
well as anything within it, living or nonliving. The routine use of the
first person in the conventional sense (one's personal self) is thus
augmented with a more mystical or figurative usage. It is customary, for
example, to assume the first person in reference to the listener in
circumstances of intimacy, such as between lovers or between parent and
child. It can also serve as an expression of intense solidarity with the
subject of one's discourse, as for example when referring to a family
member who has gone do something on one's behalf. No distinctions of number
are made in the first person pronoun.

Second Person

The second person indicates that the speaker assumes an attitude of respect
toward the person or thing named, symbolically addressing them, although
they may be absent. It has thus become the usual pronoun for referring to
persons, absent or present. Exceptions are made for intense identification,
where the first person is used, or for deliberate depersonalization, which
calls for the third person. The second person is also applied to
non-persons, including inanimate objects, when the things involved are seen
respectfully, as being in relationship with oneself, rather than as simple
objects. Thus, it is not uncommon to refer to pets, favored garden plants,
and personal items of sentimental value in the second person. No
distinctions of number are made in the second person.

Third Person

The third person is used when the antecedent is viewed impersonally, in a
detached, objective fashion, and regarded as something to be described,
rather than someone to identify with or offer respect to. This is the usual
way of treating abstract nouns, and is common for inanimate objects as
well. Used in reference to people, it suggests an artificial detachment,
and may signal the expression of a particularly harsh reality or
observation. The third person can even be applied to oneself in this sense.
The traditional Iltârer apology (speaking one's own name followed by eth
sâchiâtâ “it sinned”) harshly confesses error, and also conveys that the
speaker no longer identifies with the will to commit the wrong. The third
person pronoun is inflected according to both case and number.

Forms

                                simple  agent   referential
1st person (identification)     i       ia      ith
2nd person (respect)            â       a       an
3rd person singular             ehte    eth     then
3rd person plural               âc      âchâ    âchan
3rd person collective           essi    essi    essin


Sentence Structure

The fluid nature of personal pronoun reference is compensated for by an
almost unvarying pattern for introducing a sentence. The verb comes first,
followed by the subject and an appropriate personal pronoun, which always
refers to the subject and may not be omitted. The pattern is so formulaic
that speakers always give their own name before using the first person
pronoun alone, and likewise address the person they are speaking with by
name in the first instance. (When the listener's name is not known, an
appropriately deferential common noun may be used instead.) In subsequent
sentences, the antecedent may be omitted if context is clear, and nouns
that first appeared as objects may also be referred to by pronoun. If the
speaker wishes to depart from the usual personal associations (1=self,
2=another person, present or absent, 3=an impersonal thing), the departure
is almost always emphasized by first presenting the noun in question as the
subject of a sentence, with its unusual pronoun in immediate apposition.

Consider the following sample of dialog:

Cinsir: Petâs Cinsir i nath mimet.                      I love this book.
Athiar: Ac, narsimetin mimet â pi ith phaph.            Yes, it (2nd person) pleases
me too.
Cinsir: Hti apaltselês Athiarâ a â.                     You may borrow it (2nd person).

Literally:

(I) love Cinsir-I book this.
Yes, (you) please book-you for me too.
May (you) borrow Athiar-you you.

In conventional English word order, but with literal pronouns:

I ,Cinsir, love this book.
Yes, you, book, please me too.
You, Athiar, may borrow you.

The subject of the first sentence is I-Cinsir; the subject of the second is
you-book, and of the third you-Athiar. Athiar might have said _Ac, petâs
Athiar i ehte phaph_ “Yes, I love it too”, but she wanted to convey the
specialness of the book by referring to it in the second person, which
required placing the book as the subject and using a different verb
(_narsimet_ “to please”). In the third sentence, Cinsir respectfully
addresses Athiar by name along with the pronoun (_Athiarâ a_), although the
book is referred to with a simple “you” (_â_), following Athiar’s shift to
the second person for the book.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Tadfor Little            tom@telp.com
Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA)
Telperion Productions        www.telp.com
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