Peter Clark wrote:
> On Fri, 26 May 2000, Muke Tever wrote:
> >
> >Are there any languages, (natural or homemade) that have a sort of double
> >pronoun... ack, I don't know how to say it.
> >
> >Here:
> >"He told him the truth about his mother."
>
> My terminology is a little rusty, but I would say that the words
> you are looking for is "fourth person".
>
> >From this in English we can gather that 'he' and 'him' are different
people,
> >but out of context we have no idea whether 'his' refers to the 'he' man
or
> >the 'him' man. To make it clear in English would want something like:
> >
> >"He told him the truth about his (John's) mother."
> >
> >but would it be common (or practical?) for a language to mark _his_ to
match
> >the relevant pronoun, like:
> >
> >"He1 told him2 the truth about him2's mother."
>
> From what I gather, this sort of marking is relatively
> common. Russian has it:
>
Even Latin has it:
Is dixit ei veritatem de sua matre
he1 told him2 the truth about his1 mother
Is dixit ei veritatem de eius matre
he1 told him2 the truth about his2 mother
This because suus (-a,-um) is reflexive.
Luca