讯息： 52
语言: English
bartlett22183 (显示个人资料) 2014年9月21日下午7:23:56
nornen:Reading through this thread, I realized again how amazing the development of languages can be.I have often wondered that myself. Even as an educated native speaker of General American English, I have often been in situations in which I have had to use a makeshift (none really standard in my dialect) for a needed distinction between 'you singular' and 'you plural'. As others have noted in this thread, some languages make the distinction, and I think it is a very good one, based on my own life experiences. I see no reason why 'ci' could not come into general use in Esperanto simply as a generic second person singular pronoun if enough people would just start using it that way.
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What has caused the death of "ci"?
Bruso (显示个人资料) 2014年9月21日下午7:46:12
nornen:They regularly use neutral pronouns for women ("Et Maria sein Pap" = "Der Maria ihr Vater" = "Marias Vater" ), although they use female pronouns for inanimate nouns of female gender.The Pennsylvania German dialect still used by the Amish uses this type of possessive construction, regardless of gender.
nornen (显示个人资料) 2014年9月25日下午4:19:08
Nowadays English has 7 personal pronouns (compared to e.g. 9 in German, 14 in Spanish, 12 in Arabic, and about 7 trillion in Japanese):
The first person distinguishes number, but not gender: I and we.
The second person doesn't distinguish neither number nor gender: you.
The third person distinguishes number and gender (in the singular): he, she, it, they.
Now various of you (youse, y'all) have expressed that sometimes they have the need (or at least the desire) to make a difference between the number of the second person.
Here my questions:
Have you ever felt the same need (or desire) about the gender of the second person (like e.g. Arabic 'anta and 'anti, or Spanish vosotros and vosotras)?
Have you ever had the impression that another pronoun would come in handy?
E.g. gender distinction in "we" (nosotros-nosotras), or gender distinction in "they" (*hes, *shes, *its) (ellos-ellas)?
Different pronouns for different relations between speaker and listener (du-Sie, tu-vous, tú-usted, boku, ore, atashi, watashi)?
Different pronouns for inclusive and exclusive "we" or "you (pl)"?
Different pronouns for animate and inanimate antecedents?
Different pronouns for rational and irrational antecedents?
bartlett22183 (显示个人资料) 2014年9月25日下午5:47:03
Constructed international auxiliary design is always a matter of engineering trade-offs, this consideration against that. This has always been the case, and from my long familiarity with and participation in the auxlang field, it appears that many people do not appreciate this. Yes, I honestly consider that it would have been better if Zamenhof had expended the original E-o pronoun system, and I would still consider it suitable if a lot of E-ists would use 'ci' as a neutral (i.e., not familiar) pronoun, but I guess we have to live with E-o as it is, not as we might theoretically wish it to be.
orthohawk (显示个人资料) 2014年9月25日下午11:23:25
bartlett22183:I myself, as an educated speaker of (General American) English have never felt the need for anything more than a singular / plural distinction in second person pronouns, a sort of 'ci/vi' distinction.The mere existence of such forms as "you guys", "you'nz/yinz" and "y'all" etc. is proof that many people do indeed feel such a need. Otherwise why make a separate form for the "new plural"? Much better to just use a form that has a valid history in the language.
bartlett22183 (显示个人资料) 2014年9月26日下午9:20:37
However, the issue, as I see it here, is Esperanto, and not really English and its congeries of pronouns. Again, I think that enough people could begin using 'ci' (which literally already exists in the language, if just barely) for a general, i.e., not necessarily familiar, second person singular pronoun and 'vi' as a general plural, then the language could be appropriately expanded within its original texts and according to original principles. After all, there are now more "official" roots than the (approximately) original 800. 
kaŝperanto (显示个人资料) 2014年9月26日下午10:04:56
orthohawk:Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you are arguing the same point...bartlett22183:I myself, as an educated speaker of (General American) English have never felt the need for anything more than a singular / plural distinction in second person pronouns, a sort of 'ci/vi' distinction.The mere existence of such forms as "you guys", "you'nz/yinz" and "y'all" etc. is proof that many people do indeed feel such a need. Otherwise why make a separate form for the "new plural"? Much better to just use a form that has a valid history in the language.
Bartlett has not felt the need for more than a singlular / plural 2nd person distinction; as in he has never felt a need to distinguish gender in the 2nd person.
I am in the same boat, as are we all if we're honest. I doubt one speaker exists who has never used "you guys" or "y'all" or any other such construct, but I find it highly unnecessary to distinguish the gender of someone I am talking to directly. It would feel highly demeening, like in "You girl, go fetch me some more wine." I can see no informational purpose to distinguish gender when talking directly with someone.
Amistà (显示个人资料) 2014年9月26日下午11:17:07
As an Italian (you/y'all probably know) I'm familiar with a 2nd-person distinction between plural and singular. And of course I'm not familiar with gender distinction in 1st and 2nd persons and I never felt the need for them.
Thus I would really like to use the same in Eo, since "ci" exists. But it seems that it's not so well accepted by the community.
I honestly wouldn't have expected such a need from English speakers; I thought it was only my feeling as an Italian, when using either English or Eo. However, I use frequently English for work and I never felt that lack as a great handicap.
BTW. I'm also native Friulian speaker, where we have also a gender distinction in some verbs of the 3rd singular person. But I don't feel the need for this in other languages; in particular I wouldn't recommend it for an auxiliary language!!!
robbkvasnak (显示个人资料) 2014年9月27日上午12:28:52
Just a point.
nornen (显示个人资料) 2014年9月27日上午12:50:54
kaŝperanto:..., but I find it highly unnecessary to distinguish the gender of someone I am talking to directly. It would feel highly demeening, like in "You girl, go fetch me some more wine." I can see no informational purpose to distinguish gender when talking directly with someone.This might be due to your linguistic (anglophone) background. Spanish has a distinction between vosotros (you males) and vosotras (you females) for instance, and I don't know a single person who would deem that "demeening".
Also in English you do distinguish the gender of the person you are talking to when you say "Mr Black" and "Mrs Black". Is this unnecessary and demeening, too? Does this distinction have an informational purpose?
Seriously, "demeening"?
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About the "highly unnecessary" part: This no doubt is true. But the same holds for a lot of items of any language (including Esperanto and English).
If English works without distinction of thou and ye, then surely the distinction between I and we is highly unnecessary, too.
Other languages don't make a difference between he, she and it, and hence this distinction is highly unnecessary, too.
Other languages have no personal pronouns at all, so why bother at all?