Re: Pronouns or Names?

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@...>
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