Re: Fourth Persons

On Thu, 4 Sep 2008 12:48:26 -0700, Aidan Grey <taalenmaple@...>
>wrote:
>And Ojibwe is a non_HAS non-Inverse lang too.
>They use "empathetic" for the pronoun because in addition to LDR and
>logophoric roles, it implies empathy and approval. The sample sentence has a
>woman using the empathetic when referring to some kids wanting to learn
>the language, and then switching to a non-LDR/logophor/empathetic pronoun
>when they start acting like jerks (as kids are wont to do).
I see.

>As to Obviative and LDR - they don't necessarily need to be the same
>pronoun, or to be different morphemes. They're not as necessarily distinct in
>my mind. One could use an obviative pronoun as an LDR (and it IS, often, if
>there's no overt LDR) just as easily as not. LDR is a syntactic thing to me,
>and an obviative as a semantic use could easily be used syntactically as well.
>I guess my point is that the 4 points you've discussed don't NEED to be
>distinct, in the way that Perfective and Progressive are distinct, for example.
>One pronoun could be used for all 4 roles. Especially since there are some of
>these roles that are distinctly styntactic and other are distinctly semantic.
For my own part it is especially easy for me to see the similarity between LDRs
and "logophoric first-person"; both refer to the subject of the matrix clause.

But for obviatives and LDRs; it seems to me the subject of the main clause
might be considered _more_ topical/focal/salient, rather than _less_
topical/focal/salient than any 3rd-person in the embedded clause; so I could
see a possible conflict between obviatives and LDRs.

As for obviatives and indefinites, it might make sense to use the indefinite
pronoun for the less-salient/focal/topical 3rd-person when there are two 3rd-
person participants of equal animacy.

As for logophorics and obviatives, it might make sense to use the ordinary 3rd-
person pronoun for the "logophoric first-person" (the speaker of the reported
speech-act), and use the obviative for someone who was 3rd-person then and
is still 3rd-person now.  Whether the "logophoric second-person" (the original
addressee) should be proximative or obviative might depend on whether the
other participant is the "logophoric first-person" or a third-person who was
also a "logophoric third-person".

I don't see using the indefinite pronoun as an LDR at all.

So, for each two uses (except indefinites and LDRs), I can maybe see maybe
using one pronoun for both functions.

But it's hard to see using one pronoun for three or more.

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Thanks!