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Re: CHAT: Politeness in conlangs

From:R. Nierse <rnierse@...>
Date:Thursday, June 10, 1999, 7:45
> Nik Taylor scripsit: >=20 > > "They"? Very unusual to have a third person pronoun be used for seco=
nd
> > person. >=20 > Howzat? German does exactly that: "sie" is both 3rd person pl. and > 2nd person polite. >=20
Last week I had a discussion about this phenomenon in Dutch. In Dutch we can do even stranger things. We can use a third person for first person even do that in singular form: "Nu gaat hij weg" ("Now he is leaving", litterally meaning "Now I am leaving"). I must say it is not a normal way to say this. I observe that when used this way, the speaker wants the oth= er to know that no discussion is possible anymore: the speaker =EDs leaving.
> -- > John Cowan cowan@ccil.org > e'osai ko sarji la lojban.