English isn't my native language. I thought "he" can mean any gender.
Thank you all. I prefer "öükré" though it technically didn't answer my question.
English isn't my native language. I thought "he" can mean any gender.
"He" as a pronoun for someone of unknown gender usually comes off as archaic and/or sexist these days. In increasingly more situations, singular "they" is preferred. It would be the best choice in an informal context like this forum. If you're writing a formal paper, you'll probably be encouraged to use something like "he or she" or "he/she", which is adequate but can sound stilted, and not everyone is a "he" or a "she", anyway.Evni Öpiu-sä wrote: ↑08 Apr 2018 09:06English isn't my native language. I thought "he" can mean any gender.
I'm of a similar mind to Axiem. I can't imagine you'd get a consistent spelling from an English speaker for [øykre]; nor is there a spelling that will reliably elicit that pronunciation from them. The sounds and phototactics are simply so un-English-y. I'd go with <öükré> and accept that many Anglophones will mispronounce it. At least it looks pretty.Evni Öpiu-sä wrote: ↑08 Apr 2018 09:06Thank you all. I prefer "öükré" though it technically didn't answer my question.
Taking English as an example again, I think there's several types of underlying semantic drift here, in addition to extrapolation from conditionals. For example:Semantic evolution of past tense > irrealis mood seems very common. In addition to what you have mentioned concerning English modal verbs, in French (which I study), for example, one can freely use either the conditional or the past tense to express polite wishes, regrets and imagined actions (as in roleplaying). Could it be that a distance in time from the present is reinterpreted as a distance in reality? Or is it more likely an extrapolation from conditional sentences?
Thanks!Creyeditor wrote: ↑12 Apr 2018 21:52So, for all I know in the typical case, it would be X-ERG wants to hit Z-ABS Y-COM. But there are languages that have special case patterns for verbs like 'to want'. You migh find dative marked subjects or double absolutive constructions, so X-DAT wants to hit Z-ABS Y-COM or X-ABS wants to hit Z-ABS Y-COM.
If you can you do the alveolar tap [ɾ], as in American English kitty [kʰɪɾi], try saying two of them consecutively, eg. *kitttty [kʰɪɾɾi], without it becoming a stop [d]. This should come out as a trill, ie. [kʰɪri].
You definitely should try to get into Finnish. It does have /r/ but there's no phonetic requirement for it to be trilled since it doesn't contrast with a tap phonemically; you'll just sound like a foreigner if you never trill it, but you probably would anyway so it's no big deal and you'll still be understood; however, /r/ can occur both in the syllable onset and coda, so there are words like harrastus (hobby) which do require you to make a distinction between your [ɾ] and something else that's "longer"; you could use [ɾ] for every /r/ and then for /r.r/ use [ɾɹ] or whatever you feel comfortable with and people would understand. Yeah, you could use [ɹ] or whatever English /r/ for every /r/ in Finnish, too, but that would sound painful.
I'm not sure if it counts, but Japanese has あれ and それ. They don't refer to people, though, and the human equivalents あいつ and そいつ are only used informally (and at least according to Wiktionary the latter is rude).Nachtuil wrote: ↑14 Apr 2018 22:59I know a number of languages used demonstrative pronouns for 3rd person pronouns and a lot of languages having distal distinctions. Are there languages where 3rd person pronouns have distal distinctions? I imagine it may function as some sort of quasi obviation system. I would love to know.
Short answer; yes.