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Re: Pronouns or Names?

From:Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Date:Monday, January 3, 2005, 12:47
On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 04:21:35 -0500, Geoff Horswood
<geoffhorswood@...> wrote:
> I have to agree. Pronouns are very difficult to do without completely- > what if you don't know someone's name? How do you even ask "what's your > name?" if there's no word for "you"?
Context. I imagine the equivalent would be something like "What is the name?", with "your" being understood. (I think Japanese works something like this -- I'd probably ask "O-namae wa nan desu ka?", lit. "<honorific>-name <topic> what is <question>", i.e. "What is the name?".) Or use pseudo-pronouns such as Portuguese's "o senhor"; perhaps something like "elder brother" or "uncle" might do. So basically: I also think that a language without pronouns is more likely than one without names. Cheers, -- Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> Watch the Reply-To!