Re: Teinvard (was: hi)

SuomenkieliMaa wrote:
> To a degree, Japanese can be described like this I
> think.  There are pronouns, but 95% of the time one
> can totally avoid using them -- only if you really
> want to stress "who?" then you say the pronoun, for
> instance.
And even then, some linguists have argued that Japanese has *no*
pronouns, that the pronouns are, in fact, simply nouns that are used
referentially.  I wouldn't go that far, but I would say that Japanese
pronouns are a subclass of nouns.  And indeed, things like names and
titles can be used where Western languages would use pronouns.  In
English it would sound odd to say, for instance, "Teacher wants you to
finish this assignment by tomorrow", or "Will teacher have this on the
test?"  Also, the pronouns are a relatively open category in Japanese,
whereas in most other langs, pronouns are a closed class.

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