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Re: Resumptive pronoun?

From:claudio <claudio.soboll@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 27, 2001, 15:46
well perhaps you are right.
but at least the existance of pro-phrases (pro-form for more than one
term) is one of my conlang's core features.

example sentence:
"walking through an dark slum-alley by night in san francisco is really
exciting. but *it* is dangerous too."
"it" is referring not to a single nound but rather to the whole
phrase: "walking through an dark slum-alley at night in san francisco"

are there any natural languages which express this concept already ?


regards,
c.s.

CG> En réponse à claudio <claudio.soboll@...>:

>> >> however i see no real need for an explicit resumptive pronoun beside a >> demonstrative pronoun. >> both express the same concept. >>
CG> No they don't. A resumptive pronoun refers to things/beings which are in the CG> speech, while demonstrative pronouns refer to things/beings which are around in CG> our space-time continuum. As short, resumptive pronouns refer to the *inside* of CG> the *speech*, while demonstrative pronouns refer to the *outside* of the CG> *speech*, the world around us. It just happened that in most Western IE CG> languages both functions have conflated. Still, if it's true that you usually CG> don't need the distinction, it seems to me that you want to be quite precise CG> with your language. Thus you should dissociate those two functions. CG> Christophe. CG> http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr "rurmlor entflöt, fluppseveri trimel akre wopel larf." - alte redensart

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Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>