Re: Fourth Person

Tom Wier wrote:
> What I said was something quite different:  "one" as a pronoun is a pronoun
> that is used for something beyond just the first, second, and third person:
> it refers to society at large, to individuals in that society beyond one mentioned
> in immediate conversation.  It is wholly discursive though:  it refers to someone
> beyond just a "he" or "she".   If you think about it, to say that "one" is just a
> "generic third person" because it is, is  like saying that rocks fall to the ground because
> they have a disposition to do so, which was what Aristotle wrongly said about
> physics.  I would say that "one" is generic because deixistically, it is beyond
> the normal bounds of the third person, thus making the term _fourth_ person
> altogether necessary if you are going to speak of the semantics of it, no matter
> what endings it actually takes.
But the fact is that the term "fourth person" is already
well-established as a synonym to "obviate".  You can't go around
changing the meanings of well-established terms willy-nilly.  If you
don't want to call it a "generic/indefinite third-person pronoun", call
it something else, but *not* "fourth person".  I can't think of anything
other than "third-person indefinite" to call it, tho.  It *is* a sort of
"indefinite gender", corresponding to he, she and it for masculine,
feminine and neuter.

--
"A silent mouth is sweet to hear" - Irish proverb
ICQ: 18656696
AOL: NikTailor
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files/