Re: Interesting Pronouns.

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)
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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.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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