Re: affective pronouns

En réponse à bnathyuw <bnathyuw@...>:

> an idea i'ld like to throw open to everyone.
>
> bac currently has a 'neuter pronoun' or 'neuter
> article', tat.
>
> tat has no meaning, but can be used where a word is
> needed for grammatical purposes, but none fits.
>
> examples :
>
> TNAWT reygac /naUt "4egatS/
> the former king ( reyg is a borrowing and can't
> inflect )
>
> TNAT shelb /nat hElb/
> the red one
>
> PnesAT /"mEsat/
> if only it would rain ( a suffix is needed to make the
> imperative, but the third person suffix would imply an
> agent )
>
So it's like English "it" in "it rains", or French "ce" in "ce que je veux
dire...": "what I want to say...", a pronoun necessary for grammatical purposes
(since English verbs have to have a subject, except in the imperative mood, and
French relative pronouns have to have an antecedent in the sentence), but
without meaning by itself. Its use as a case holder (in the case of uninflected
borrowings) is quite interesting. Have you thought that you could use the same
construction by replacing the borrowing with a quote? (which, since it features
more than one word, cannot be easily inflected) It would be a neat way to
introduce some subclauses, like the ones used in indirect speech, or some
circumstantial subclauses (add |tat| in the causative case - or if you don't
have a causative case, just add to it the preposition/postposition/affix needed
to mark cause by nouns - in front of a clause and you give it the
meaning "because"). Well, it's probably a little further from what you have
thought about, but the "meaning" of this pronoun makes it a good candidate for
such a job.

> now, i was thinking today about the use in english of
> words like 'f uck'. an extreme example being the
> phrase 'the f ucking f ucker's f ucking f ucked',
> which could, eg, be expleted when a computer crashes
>
Why do you write the word with a space after the 'f'?

> it strikes me that 'f uck''s use is logically rather
> like that of a pronoun—it has a reference but no
> meaning ( in this circumstance at least . . . it is
> after all also a verb and a noun ).
>
Well, I'm not sure about the "no meaning" part. I find it pretty
meaningfull! :))) It's more like a normal pro-form (pronoun or pro-verb too,
since it can be used as a verb) except that it needs to be added affixes (like -
er, as well as the article, for the pronominal meaning) to act as something
else than a simple expletive exclamation. I see it as an insultive equivalent
to "that one", "him/her/it", "that", or "to do" (or maybe rather, "not to
do"? ;))) ). Of course, if you say that the pronoun "that" doesn't have a
meaning either (I can understand the logic behind such an explanation), at
least by itself, then of course you're right.

> this got me thinking . . . the use of tat already
> gives a word that acts like this : being used for
> grammatical function rather than meaning. why not
> extend it.
>
> i could therefore, outside the five cardinal pronouns
> ( first, second, third, indefinite ( and interrogative
> ) and neuter ) institute a series of affective
> pronouns. these would have no meaning, and only
> situational reference, but would come with emotional
> baggage. i think i'ld want to extend this system
> beyond the english style expletives to encompass
> positive as well as negative attitudes.
>
I find it a rather nice idea! (mental note: add this feature to Maggel ;))) )
Also very naturalistic, for reasons I'm gonna explain here under.

> question : what do people think ? any examples of a
> systematised application of this in any existent
> (con)lang ?
>
Well, your idea seems to be a strong generalisation of what many languages
already do at very small scales. For instance, the encoding of politeness in
personal pronouns is quite like what you describe. In Japanese, such encoding
includes also affectivity (what the person the person's talking to means to
him/her), but this is complicated since it's politeness which is the main
driving feature here, not affectivity. I've heard English "it" being used to
refer to people, but in an extremely derogative way (in French, we have an
equivalent by using "ça" instead of "il" or "elle". But that's not to be used
often, since it's extremely derogative - since it compares a human being with a
thing, a lifeless object. Even animals are referred to by "il" or "elle" in
French, never by "ça" -). In all those cases, some other feature is more
important than affectivity/attitude. But it wouldn't surprise me if there is a
language out there that takes attitude as the main feature when choosing a
pronoun to refer to someone/something. I have a bit more doubt that this would
appear also with pro-verbs, but why not? And what about an interrogative
pronoun that directly means "what the hell...?"? :)))))

As I said, I find the idea pretty nice, and it strikes me as quite
naturalistic, and although I don't any language that has this feature as
dominant (although as you've seen it exists in many languages as secondary
feature), I wouldn't be surprised if there is a language somewhere that
considers it dominant.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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