tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 24 23:51:15 2002
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: All of us... again
- From: "Sangqar (Sean Healy)" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: All of us... again
- Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 04:50:49 +0000
>Pardon my breaking in with English, but perhaps I can be most clear and
>expidicious on this issue by doing so.
>
>The word {tlhIH} DOES mean "all of you" simply because if I'm speaking and
>you
>are listening, that makes me first person and you second person, and if I'm
>referring to second person plural, that means all the people in the second
>person. There can't be some people in the second person who are excluded
>from
>{tlhIH}. Anyone excluded would be in the THIRD person. All the people I'm
>talking about are the same people I'm talking to.
>
>This division of persons is not as useful for {maH}, since the people I'm
>talking to and the people I'm talking about with {maH} don't have to be the
>same people. First person plural always includes the person speaking and
>anyone
>else grouped with the person speaking. This may or may not include the
>second
>person and it may even include people the second person considers to be
>third
>person.
If I apply your reasoning on second person plural to first person plural,
then everyone I include in my group is 'we all' - everyone else is second or
third person, so we shouldn't ever need a 'we all'. There IS a difference
between 'you (plural)' and 'you all'; otherwise, I wouldn't be able to walk
into a room with three people in it and tell two of them to leave. Once I
used a marker to indicate 'you (plural)', if it actually were the same as
'you all', all three people would believe they were being told to leave.
You are right in that anyone I'm not actually addressing is part of the
third person, but 'you all' means I'm talking to everyone in the room,
whereas 'you (plural)' CAN indicate that I'm just talking to a smaller
subgroup (and that everybody else is part of the third person for the
duration of that speech). 'you all' adds extra information to 'you
(plural)'.
_________________________________________________________________
Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.
http://www.hotmail.com