R: Re: another ?

Nik wrote:

> Mario Bonassin wrote:
> >
> > this may sound stupid but I'm not to sure on it.  The race that speaks
> > this lang. never use I, me, you, him, her, it etc.  they instead use a
> > term simular to the british use of 'one'  like "One does not think one
> > should do such a thing." Is this considered 3rd person or not and (heres
> > the stupid part) should it actually be the number 1.  They do use things
> > like they and we though so where would this fit in.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean.  Do you mean that they have no way of
> distinguishing singular persons, so that all "I know", "you.sing know",
> "he knows", "she knows", "it knows" are all the same, but "we know",
> "you.pl know", "they know" are distinguished?  Very strange.  Surely
> there must be a way to distinguish between those?  "One" is considered
> to be an impersonal pronoun, taking third person agreement in languages
> with personal inflection.  There's no need to use the number one.
> German uses "mann" (person), Spanish uses "se" (the same as the
> reflexive pronoun).
>
My teacher of German once said me that she had a relative who, as every good
noble German (she is of noble origins), used only indirect speech.

Ich sehe es (I see it)
    became
Man sieht es (one sees it)

Was machst du gerade? (What are you doing?)
    became
Was macht man gerade? (What one is doing?)

(Jörg?)

This is present also in Italian:

(noi) si va a Roma
One goes to Rome > We go to Rome

Si va a Roma?
Ones goes to Rome > Do you go to Rome?

Cosa si fa oggi? Si sta a casa.
What one does today? One stays at home
that is: What do you do today? I stay at home.

Notice that the meaning of these constructions is 90% contextually
understandable, even if it is quite archaic-sounding today (especially the
form 'noi si + 3sg', typicalli Tucanian).

Japanese many times leaves the subject out, AFAIK. I like Mario's idea,
anyway I'd include some pronouns, used when things get difficult to
understand and the subject's not clear.

Luca