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Re: Most developed conlang

From:Ben Haanstra <kof@...>
Date:Friday, April 20, 2007, 13:56
>Would you say that Japanese 'sensei' is patently wrong for 'you'? >What's the problem of using (idiomatic) nouns for pronouns?
>**Henrik
Actually sensei isn't used for you. Sensei is used for people who are teachers/doctors and such, it isn't the same as you, as you refers to the person, irrelevant whether it's the speaker/hearer or attribute/property of the person. The Japanese use a lot of words for 'you', kimi, anata, anta, omae, etc. But usually they aren't that direct, so they use the surname with -san or a different 'affix' (including sensei) or 'a nickname'(person who does) or actually no pronouns at all. Speaker and hearer, the one who is speaking/hearing is different everytime on top of that, what if a sentence features the 'displacement'? What if the speaker isn't speaking at all. So I'd go with that hearer/speaker isn't a good term for you and I. You can use idiomatic nouns for pronouns, but when which exact meaning is used should be arbitrarly explained and used.

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Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>