Re: Fourth Person

On Sun, 4 Oct 1998, Tom Wier wrote:

> > No, it isn't. For example, I'm speaking to you, even though you are far
> > away. Are you the third person in the email? No, you're the second person
> > -- the hearer.
> >
> > Deixis and discursive role are two different and non-covarying things.
> "Deixis" in linguistics just means a degreed series of relationships,
Right. Do you know of any natural languages with pronouns denoting graded
discursive roles? "I, partially the speaker, am telling sort of you and a
little of that other guy to get me a beer." :P

You might want to theorize fuzz into these roles, but if you can't think
of a natural language that treats them deictically -- in graded
relationships --, then what I said still stands:

Deixis and discursive role are two different and non-covarying things.

_____________________________________________________________________________
Christopher Reid Palmer   reid@pconline.com   www.pconline.com/~reid

"A virtue must be our own invention, our most necessary self-expression
and self-defense: any other kind of virtue is merely a danger."
--Nietzsche, *The Antichrist*