I was wondering if a language exists without the ability to express the notions of 'I', 'We', 'they' etc.
Would it be possible to communicate without these concepts being expressible as a referential function?
-
1Basic, Pascal, C.– Yellow SkyOct 28, 2014 at 14:00
-
1Japanese has those, that for they, he, she.– AnixxOct 28, 2014 at 14:41
-
1I don't know if there is a language that those concept are non-existent at all, But communicating without them exists in various languages like: Turkish, Arabic, Greek etc.– kabraxisMay 5, 2017 at 18:54
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
In many languages the pronouns for the 3rd person singular and plural are, at least etymologically, demonstrative pronouns. Most languages have personal pronouns in the 1st and 2nd person singular and plural, but in some languages (especially in South-East Asia) these are not used in polite discourse, but are replaced by kinship terms or other substitutes. For example, in Vietnamese, if I am speaking to an older man, I will not say “Can I help you?”, but the equivalent of “Can nephew help uncle?”.
-
2indeed Vietnamese people rarely use real pronouns but those words do exist en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_pronouns Oct 29, 2014 at 8:20
-
1Ditto for Malay/Indonesian. The pronouns exist, mind -- quite a few of them, in fact, with all kinds of built-in semantics -- but two facts limit their use: (1) any noun that can refer to a person can be used as a first-, second-, or human third-person anaphor; and (2) by far the most commonly-used anaphor in unmonitored speech is
{∅}, i.e, zero reference is the norm, with intended referents determined solely by context.– jlawlerMay 5, 2017 at 19:30