Talk:Pronoun
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Japanese pronouns
I just moved this to the top since it's important...
- I took out (almost) all the stuff about Japanese, because Japanese doesn't have grammatical pronouns. I also added the snippets about Korean, German, Swedish, and Fijian. Squidley 18:41, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- BTW, what is the stuff on deictics/correlatives doing here? They aren't pronouns. Squidley 18:41, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've just reverted to the last version, since Japanese does indeed have pronouns (see here (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese:Pronouns)). Japanese natives recognize them as a separate part of speech, and from a functional POV they're clearly pronouns and not common nouns (even though morphologically they look exactly like nouns).
I might add that this swift deletion of illustrative passages without much justification and without discussion is quite shocking to me (regardless that it was me who wrote the passage).
Deictics may or may not be pronouns. Anybody? I also believe that they should be somewhere else but have trouble finding the borders between pronouns, deictics, determiners, et al.
Now I'm going to try and merge into the article the things Squidley did contribute...
--Pablo D. Flores 13:09, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- In Japanese, the difference between common nouns and pronouns is not clear, and many linguists treat pronouns as a subcategory of nouns. For instance, the following sentence is grammatical:
- Watashi wa mukashi no watashi de wa nai.
- (lit. I am not the me of the past. = I am not what I used to be.)
- Here, "mukashi no watashi," which literally means "the me of the past," is a correct phrase. In addition, there are many nouns that can be used pronomically.
- A child: O-tōsan wa doko?
- (lit. Where is Dad? = Where are you, Dad?)
- His father: O-tōsan wa koko da yo.
- (lit. Dad is here. = I'm here.)
- In this conversation, both use o-tōsan to refer to the father. This kind of pronoun system is explained in Vietnamese pronouns. Actually, because of these facts, I don't want to use Japanese for an example of complex pronouns according to formality and politeness, but I don't know a better language. - TAKASUGI Shinji 08:20, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)
Thou
"As of 2001, the forms of Thou are no longer used in most speech"
What happened in 2001? User:Verloren
- 2001 is a sample point representing the beginning of Wikipedia (and thus of its NPOV policy). When I see "now" in Wikipedia articles, I tend to replace it with a recent year because there's a (remote) possibility that 'thee' and 'thou' could experience a comeback over the course of the next century. Does anybody know the range of years when "thou" began to pass out of common use? If not, I'll write "sometime between 1600 and 1900". --Damian Yerrick
- Coleridge (died 1834) used "thou", but mostly only when he was in sermonizing mode. Quakers in England seemed to be still using "thou" in the early 1800's. -- Marj Tiefert
- Well, if thou gets a revival, hopefully the page will be updated until then... ;P
So, what's the point of having that table of French pronouns there? What does it illustrate?
You-guys
You-guys is the new plural you. It seems to have originated in Canada
- Really? I've said it all my life, more than half a century now, and I was born and grew up in California. -- Zoe
- This seems like some bizarre attempt at poking humour at Canada (it's an anonymous edit), and I was unable to find any evidence for the claim that "you-guys" originated in Canada nor that it is becoming "the new plural you", so I removed the footnote. Yelyos
3-way deixis
This is a difficult question to ask, but let me try to ask it anyway.
Some languages make a pronoun distinction between "near the speaker" and "near the person spoken to", or so I hear. Is this distinction ever made with pronouns corresponding to the English "now"? In speech, there is obviously no need for such a distinction: I am speaking while you are listening. However, in writing, there is a definite need for such a distinction: you might be reading long after I write. (Like those "Tag Sale Today!" signs.)
- I think japanese has a similar distinction, (Close to speaker, Close to Listener, Far from Both) but I don't think it applies to pronouns, (who, by the way, aren't used much in japanese.)
- Japanese has no pronouns, but it does have a three-way distinction in its deictics: proximal (close to speaker), mesial (close to listener), distal (distant from both speaker and listener). Squidley 18:46, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- See above (Japanese pronouns) --Pablo D. Flores 13:09, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Pronoun tables
So, what's the point of having that table of French pronouns there? What does it illustrate?
- I agree with this. The table of french pronouns seems completely redundant in this article, it illustrates nothing. -Lethe 23:40, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)
And "Personal pronouns refer to things" does not seem a pretty informative asertion. Perhaps it would be better 'Personal pronouns refer to "grammatical person", neither to "persons" or people, nor to things.'
Slavic genitive pronouns
These slavic examples seem to be reflexive genitive pronouns, plain and simple.
Ana je dala Mariji njenu knjigu. - Ana gave her (Maria's) book to Maria. Ana je dala Mariji svoju knjigu. - Ana gave her (Ana's) book to Maria.
Swedish and the Scandinavian languages share a similar distinction:
Anna gav Maria hennes bok. - Anna gave her (Maria's) book to Maria. Anna gav Maria sin bok. - Anna gave her (Ana's) book to Maria.
(Strangely enough, there seem to be very little info in Wikipedia about reflexive grammar...)
- Uhhh, I stubbed some shit together now, I really think there should be more info about reflexive grammar, somehow...
Pronoun terminology
This question was brought to my attention while I was studying RC:
Normally, the pronoun "he" means a man and "she" means a woman. However, in ship terminology, "she" means a ship. Any Internet site that talks about the rule in detail?? Georgia guy 15:36, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Actually, 'she' can mean any vessel.
How come words that replace adjectives are pronouns insted of proadjectives? Daniel 01:46, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- Doesn't that derive from old grammatical genders, that were used in Old English, but nowadays largely disappeared. As a footnote, in many languages with gender, such as German, Spanish, French etc, words like he, she, it etc could refer to all kinds of nouns.
- See the article pro-form. There are pronouns (he, who, ours), pro-adjectives (such), pro-adverbs (there, when), and pro-verbs (do so). In addition, there are possessive determiners, which are closely related to pronouns (your, whose). - TAKASUGI Shinji 08:26, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)
