Re: 1st person vocative (was: Language universal?)

[snip]

> In the extreme form we have schizophrenia and - this is an area in which,
> thankfully, I have no experience and, indeed, great ignorance - I assume
> that if there is articulated interpersonal communication between the
> individual's different persons then 2nd person forms are used just as they
> are in interpersonal intercourse between difference individuals.
[not my understanding of schizophrenia - are you thinking of multiple
personality disorders?]

[snip]

> What I have experience is people actually talking to themselves and,
> as in the case of my long departed grandmother, arguing with
> themselves. "Where did I put those papers?  I know, on the chest in
> the hall.  Of course it wasn't.  I never went in the hall this
> morning.  I must've......."
> First person all time.  But then 2nd person would crop up.  "I
> better hurry up or I shall miss that bus.  Don't be so silly - it's
> only half-past; you got another quarter of an hour".  Possibly this
> is very mild schizophrenia, but quite common IME.
> Does anyone in any language actually address the ego in
> intrapersonal [sic] communication?
Gevey has this ability. In normal conversation the speaker will use
the simple animate form of the first person pronoun - "te"

However, internal animate and external animate forms of the pronoun
also exist - "ta" could be used by a speaker holding a conversation
with themselves inside their head, while "to" could be used if the
speaker was having a conversation with their reflection in the mirror
(like in Mary Poppins!).

"Tuu" - inanimate I - is a theoretical possibility, but I don't see it
being used outside the realms of bad poetry. "Duu" (inanimate you,
singular) would be a possibility for spiritualists and other types of
necromancers...

It should be said that this is a very literal interpretation of the
concept of object status in Gevey, the reality is a lot more complex
than the above example seems (I'm still coming to terms with the
concept myself).

Rik

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