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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Japanese Pronouns
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References: <01bc265a$a239f270$275ee8cd@sal9000> <5gs1es$o4k@netsrv2.spss.com> <E7Cy0D.26H@midway.uchicago.edu> <3331A6B9.2981@qualcomm.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 20:32:35 GMT
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In article <3331A6B9.2981@qualcomm.com>,
Holoholona  <" bmoore"@qualcomm.com> wrote:
>Daniel von Brighoff wrote:
>
>> Furthermore, some even argue that Japanese doesn't have any true pronouns,
>> but that's another matter altogether.
>
>I always had trouble fathoming that.   A few semesters of Japanese didn't
>get me to the depth of understanding the etymology of the Japanese
>pronouns, I just learned to try to avoid them when I could.
>
>But, I'm curious.  Could you (or anyone else) try to elaborate on this?

Well, it's not my argument, so I'm not sure how good a case I can make.
The bases seem to be (1) the class of "personal pronouns" in Japanese is
open-ended (and, as Bill Vaughn has shown, suprisingly fluid) and (2)
etymologically, most "personal pronouns" are common nouns.

For example, I've been told (on Usenet, so keep your salt-cellar handy)
that 'watashi' (and, presumably, its variants like 'atashi' and
'watakushi') is a word for "self".  And 'boku', also used for first-person  
reference, is borrowed from a Classical Chinese word for "servant", IIRC.
(It's been a while since I looked it up in a Chinese dictionary.)

On the other hand, I don't think the average Japanese associates
'watakushi' and 'boku' with anything but first-person reference (and
possibly watermelon juice, but that's neither here nor there.)  Therefore,
claiming that they are not pronouns is anachronistic.  It's like calling
Spanish 'vos' "plural" even though--grammatically and pragmatically--it's
singular.

-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
