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Connglish

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Saturday, November 18, 2006, 21:07
No, not "con-glish", but "Connor-glish".  My son, who is rapidly
approaching the advanced age of 3, now speaks something that is a
fairly good approximation of English. But one of the most noticeable
departure is in the third-person singular pronouns.

First, all forms are epicene.  This is true even though has no trouble
distinguishing the sexes, and readily tells me whether someone is a
"boy" or a "girl" (which categories apply to any age),  but the
pronouns are the same for both.

Second, the particular words are strange:

    nominative: her
    possessive: hers
    oblique: him

Example: No, don't give him it!  Her don't want hers bottle!

One might almost suspect my wife of supplying a matriarchal bias. :)

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Sally Caves <scaves@...>