Re: Fourth Person

Nik Taylor wrote:

> 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.
But if you note that the term "fourth person" in reference to an proximate/
obviate system such as that which characterizes many Native American
languages is in fact not only limited to those languages, but its use there is
even on the wain because of the misleading name it has.  So, to try to use
the term "fourth person" in the sense that I was claiming was more like
coining the term than reassigning it some other semantic meaning.  Besides,
we already have two specific terms to refer to the two specific aspects of
the third person systems of those languages which have it, "proximate" and
"obviate", so if anything, the fourth person term used in that sense is the
one, I think, that should not be used.

As for the meaning of "one", I have already stated that saying "one" is
a generic pronoun is a little misleading in itself, as it says really nothing
about the pronoun.  As I said, the problem with the way Aristotle
explained the reason why rocks fall to the ground ("because they have
a tendency to do so") is that it's not very enlightening.  Similarly, if you
say that the "one" is a just a generic pronound 'because it is', that's not
telling you much.  That's why I like to look at the genericness of "one"
as a dimensional thing.  Clearly, "one" is not likely the other pronouns
that in English receive the third person ending -s; it is dimensionally
beyond that, because it applies to those beings in their being a member
of something beyond the scope of the people known -- when you say
"one", you are saying what a member of society _would_ say, what he
_would_ do, and so forth.  You are taking a step beyond just merely
a "third" person, experiences, you are talking about what society as a whole
would say or feel. And in this, don't think that it's a delusion of plurality,
because "one" can be both -- you can think of society as a collective,
or society as a gathering of individuals. "One" could be pluralized, too,
if we had the means in English.

So, in a sense, you have to think about what the "fourth person"
would have to look like.  It would have to be as dimensionally
different, in my opinion, as the third dimension (space) is from
the fourth (time).

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"Why should men quarrel here, where all possess /
as much as they can hope for by success?"
 - Quivera, _The Indian Queen_ by Henry Purcell
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