Re: Future English

On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 08:38:59 -0600, Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
wrote:

>From:    Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>
>> Does any English dialect allow 'thats meaning' in the previous
>> sentence for 'the meaning of that word'?  I was searching for a
>> distinction like German 'dessen Bedeutung' and 'seine Bedeutung'.
>
>Not that I know of.  English doesn't have very good materials available
>for reference tracking beyond the inherited gender system in the pronouns.
>I suppose the best we have is the rather clunky "the former" and "the
>latter".  Which of course doesn't mean that a future English couldn't
>develop an obviation system :)
Good idea! :)

Some possibilities: formo '(the) former' vs. leto '(the) latter',
fostan '(the) first one' vs. odon '(the) other one', disan 'this one' vs.
detan 'that one', hiran '(the) one here' > 'this one' vs. deran '(the) one
there' > 'that one'.

- Rob