Re: R: Re: another ?

On Mon, 2 Oct 2000, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Mangiat wrote:
> > 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.
>
> Right, there would have to be a way of indicating person, even if it's
> usually omitted.
>
> Note that in Japanese, there's a tendency to avoid pronouns in certain
> situations, so that a person might say, when speaking to his children
> "Listen to father", or to his nephew "Uncle will give you a bicycle for
> Christmas" (these examples are from "Words in Context" by Takao Suzuki),
> and the pronouns are historically derived from nouns, for instance
> watakushi (I) < private; boku (I) < servant; kimi (you) < lord, etc.
Huh.  Korean does similar things, though I don't actually know where the
existing pronouns are derived from.  :-/  I tried explaining to my house
that "kkatta" could mean "I went, he went, she went, they went, you
(plural) went, you (singular) went," etc. (have I missed anything?) and
they just boggled at me.  But when you're used to it, context makes
things clear, and otherwise you use pronouns or third-person.  Some 70%
of the time or so in conversation at home the subject gets left out.

I wish I'd thought of something like that for Chevraqis pronouns.
Probably too late.  <sigh>

YHL