Logan Kearsley wrote:
> Proto-Indo-European got along without 3rd person pronouns. But what
> about getting rid of first or second person pronouns instead? Or both?
> One could have a language that lacks grammatical person entirely; or,
> perhaps more interestingly, one could have a language that lacks the
> 1st and 2nd person pronouns, but still retains grammatical person in
> things like verb conjugation (maybe explainable as a creole).
>
> As PIE got along along using demonstratives instead of the usual 3rd
> person pronouns, one could replace 1st and 2nd person pronouns using
> phrases based on words for speaker and addressee. 'I', for example,
> could be "this speaker", and 'you' could be "the (current) addressee".
> Those are not, however, exactly equivalent to the usual pronouns
> because the same words could be used to refer to different people in
> other contexts- "the speaker/addressee in that other conversation",
> for example.
I believe there are a number of natural languages that do so.
--
John W. Kennedy
"I want everybody to be smart. As smart as they can be. A world of
ignorant people is too dangerous to live in."
-- Garson Kanin. "Born Yesterday"
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