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Re: Interesting Pronouns.

From:Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 8, 2001, 5:13
At 11:05 am -0400 7/5/01, Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
[snip]
> >A feature you may not have thought of or encountered is inclusive/exclusive >for the 1st person plural: inclusive means "you and me", while exclusive >is "me, some others, but not you"; this is a common feature in various >natlangs.
Novial had: me = I, me nu = "Royal we", i.e. 1st singular used by royalty nus = we, us [true plural] (The 2nd pers. was straightforward: vu [sing.], vus [plural]) One of 'Novial reform' groups (yes there are rival reforms :) rejigged the first person thus: SINGULAR PLURAL me = I, me (commoners) mes = we, us [exclusive plural] nu = I, me (royalty) nus = we, us [inclusive plural] As a a republican (_not_ Republican!), I objected strongly to _nu_ whose inclusion does seem odd in a language intended for the 21st cent. Anyway, logically "nus" ought to plural used when two or more monarchs speek together, not the exclusive plural for commoners :) De Jong in his reform of Volapük gave it an exclusive and inclusive 1st person plural and gave a slightly more logical singular meaning to the pronoun corresponding to the inclusive plural, thus: SINGULAR PLURAL ob = I obs = we [exclusive] og = you or I ogs = we [inclusive] Although most of De Jong's reforms were adopted, this one wasn't & AFAIK Volapükists continue to use Schleyer's _ob_ (sing.) and _obs_ (plural) only.
>Minimalizing pronoun use is also a possibility, though not featuring them >at all would be very extreme;
Classical Yiklamu has no personal pronouns; indeed, has only two pronouns: mi - which serves as an anaphoric. meg = who (interrogative, I believe - tho I'm not sure) -------------------------------------------------------------------- At 12:56 pm -0400 7/5/01, Andreas Johansson wrote: [snip]
> >What about a minimal pronnoun table?
[snip]
>number, and the 3rd person pronoun can double up as demonstrative pronoun.
...as in Latin & many other natlangs.
>I >fear you won't get away without the full three persons, tho',
Classical Yiklamu does! So tremble ;)
>and you'll >prolly have to have pronouns for "some", "none", "all" etc.
Classical Yiklamu does have pronouns for these either.
>But markedly >smaller than English is clearly possible.
Clearly. Ray. ========================================= A mind which thinks at its own expense will always interfere with language. [J.G. Hamann 1760] =========================================