Re: Demonstratives & 3rd Person Pronouns (Was: English They)

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Chris Bates >
>
>
>On a different but related subject, do many languages just use
>demonstratives instead of having special 3rd person pronouns? Both
>Basque and Latin do this, so I don't think it can be that uncommon.
>*thinks* I think Swahili may do it as well.... I'm trying to drag
>it up into memory. If a language does this and it doesn't
>distinguish gender in its demonstratives (which Latin does since it
>has grammatical gender) then it doesn't distinguish gender in its
>3rd person pronouns either. BTW, are there any languages which have
>a gender distinction in their demonstratives but don't have a wider
>system of grammatical gender?
Swahili does have 3 personal pronouns: 1: mimi/sisi, 2: wewe/ninyi,
3: yeye/wao.  There is no distinction of gender, but the 3rd person
pl. cannot be used of things, only of people.  They are mainly used
for emphasis or contrast, the personal prefix on the verb being
enough.

nilisoma, I read
ulisoma, you read
alisoma, he read
tulisoma, we read
mlisoma, you read
walisoma, they read

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